


Warlock's No Good, Rotten, Terrible, Awful Time in Hell

by cantakeroussass



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexual Relationship, Crowley Loves Warlock Dowling, Established Relationship, Gen, Hastur Being an Asshole (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, Parent-Child Relationship, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Queer Guardian Angel Aziraphale (Good Omens), The Dowlings' A+ Parenting (Good Omens), Torture, Trauma, Warlock Dowling Needs a Hug, Whump, Ze/Zir Pronouns for Beelzebub (Good Omens), abuse of cocoa as a coping mechanism, you're gonna suffer but you're gonna be happy about it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:35:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23950927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cantakeroussass/pseuds/cantakeroussass
Summary: When Hastur doesn't find the Antichrist at Megiddo, he instead kidnaps the sole survivor, Warlock Dowling—witness and ward of the traitor, Crowley. But when the trials commence, one key piece of evidence is forgotten.Crowley and Aziraphale escape the clutches of their Head Offices, and Warlock is left, abandoned and unnoticed in the Pits of Hell. But the Dark Council isn't finished balancing the books after the apocalypse-gone-wrong.--TL;DR Three years pass before Crowley realizes his baby is missing, and he, Aziraphale, and Warlock all suffer a lot. But there will be fluff and comfort eventually~Contains chapter-by-chapter content warnings in addition to the general tag warnings.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley & Warlock Dowling, Nanny Ashtoreth & Warlock Dowling
Comments: 77
Kudos: 52





	1. Let Warlock Say Shit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to wait to post this until I was finished writing it, but then I found out today was the 30th anniversary of the original publishing of Good Omens. So I caved and decided to start posting today. I apologize in advance for my guaranteed TERRIBLE posting schedule and inevitable hiatuses, but also I'm just wildly excited to start sharing this fic. I'm super super thrilled with what I've got so far, and I hope you all like it too!
> 
> There is going to be A LOT of Warlock suffering in this fic. I don't know how to gauge "graphic violence" in writing, but... I'm doing my best to make it vivid and unpleasant (I mean, this is Hell) so proceed with caution. But there will be fluff and comfort and fix-it in the future! Once it's been painfully earned!
> 
> BUT, I will be updating the tags as I go when necessary, and I'll be putting content warnings in the end notes of every chapter for a more detailed idea of what to expect and be prepared for.
> 
> Shoutout to [impishtubist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpishTubist/pseuds/ImpishTubist) for being the best cheerleader through my "make an 11 y/o cry" project! Love you, love the support, love your writing!!!

**PROLOGUE**

**Let Warlock Say Shit**

Mr. La Vista was weird. His eyes were pitch black, even where they were meant to be white. There were patches of green on his cheeks, like scales or leathery skin. His clothes were disheveled and worn out like a homeless person, not like the sort of person his parents would usually associate with. What was the most weird thing about him is how normal everyone was treating the situation. His dad didn’t bat an eye when they shook hands and his mom didn’t crinkle her nose the moment they stepped out of the car. Like no one else could see how strange this weirdo was.

“You smell like poo,” Warlock said

“Funny boy!” Mr. La Vista laughed. “Always love a good joke, me!”

Ugh, lame.

“Where’s the dog?” Even as his father spoke, Mr. La Vista’s gaze stayed on Warlock. Bore through his head, searching for something. He should break the gaze or step behind his mother, probably. Warlock should definitely be more scared of this creepy man with too much interest in him, but Warlock sneered instead. What had Nanny always said? He had the legions of the damned behind him?

“Will you shut up!” he shrieked at Thaddeus, and for the first time, his parents looked uneasy as the greasy man in a beat up trench coat started circling their son. The more frantic Hastur got, the wider Warlock’s grin became.

“Do you hear voices? What are they saying? What are they telling you?” His fingers pressed hard and insistent into Warlock’s shoulders. Hard enough to hurt. Hard enough to elicit a bubble of laughter out of him.

He shouldn’t antagonize his father’s co-workers. Especially not the maniacal ones.

But winding up adults was just too much fun.

“The voices…” Warlock said.

“ _Yes._ ”

“...in my head all say…”

“What!?” he screeched, hair somehow more wild than before. Like a mop dipped in tar and left out to dry.

“...you smell like poo.”

His groans of pain were almost lyrical as he had a meltdown more dramatic than that awful play the Prime Minister’s wife had dragged them to. What a pathetic idiot.

Then he crunched through his finger. Hard enough to snap bone. Hard enough to make blood bubble out of the wound.

Mr. La Vista had been waiting for them with a companion in tow. A younger person, with weird hair that was spiked and twisted together like rabbit ears on their head. Warlock hadn’t noticed them until they were suddenly sprinting away. I’d like to tell you it would have made a difference, if Warlock had taken more notice of the demon racing to the hills and had followed suit, running for his life. But there was nowhere to run to anyway.

“Croooowleeeey!!!” the pale man moaned as his blood dripped off his finger, thick and black like acid.

It sparked and flickered as it fell, and when it touched the ground, it splashed up into large, roaring flames.

Now the adults reacted. Now they moved as if waking from a dream.

“Warlock! Warlock, sweetie!” Harriet shrieked, hand out to grab him as Thaddeus dragged her toward the car. Secret service tried to create a wall between them, but simply burst up into black and white licks of fire. Human-shaped pillars of flame.

“WARLOCK, COME HERE!”

Drivers burst up one-by-one as if combusting within. One of the army Jeeps blew, showering the whole parade of people in sparks that lit up the ground as quick as flashpaper. Thaddeus’ shoulder smoked for a moment before flames sparked out and he bellowed in agony.

“DAD!” Warlock screamed, his own voice cracking before he could hope to drown out that awful booming shout.

Harriet screeched as the fire burst up his jacket sleeve toward her, and she batted her husband away, whirling back on Warlock as he coughed against the smoke, tears and snot and ash mingling to grime on his face.

Each guard’s shriek sounded like metal grating and twisting as they lit up like the birthday candles he’d blown out on a few days ago. One man’s toupee burned particularly bright as his body charred and fell to the dirt and the toupee brushed against Warlock’s sneakers.

“MOM! MOM, I’M ON FIRE!!”

His feet burned red hot as the rubber of his soles melted across his skin and the fibers of his sock stuck to his skin like hair, pulling and tugging. The edge of his pants warmed as fire licked at the hem.

“MOM!!!” he wailed as he had never once in his life cried out for her.

“I’ve got you, sweetie! I’m here, I’m here!” And he dreamed away the panic in her voice as she batted at his ankle, trying to beat out the white-black flames that smelled sticky and strong.

Hastur’s moans carried across the wind, twisting higher and higher until he pealed with laughter, silhouetted gray and wispy like smoke against the backdrop of fire. All around them the remaining bodies burned and charred, flat against the ground. Warlock pressed his face into his mother’s neck and tried to bite down his cries as she beat more furiously against the licks of flames that only spread and spread and spread—

She shoved him back and Warlock fell to a heap on the ground. He heard her shrieks and could feel the warmth of her as the fire danced up her arm, consuming her cardigan, her skin, herself.

Harriet’s screams stopped just a moment before her body fell. Her charred fingers landed on Warlock’s ankle. A caress where the last of the fire was finally going out.

“M-Mom!” His fingers brushed her hand and it disintegrated in his touch. Fingers falling away to dust.

“You’re still here?”

Warlock shook as the grimey black boots of Mr. La Vista stopped in front of him.

Hastur grabbed Warlock by the front of the boy’s jacket and dragged him to his feet. He sniffed a streak up the side of Warlock’s face, and the boy got a whiff of him in return. A rough and acrid scent he would soon learn to identify as sulfur.

"Put me down you stupid—" Warlock writhed in his grasp.

“He’s gone and warded you, has he?”

Warlock decided then and there that he preferred it when Hastur wasn’t smiling.

“Oh, _Crowley._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: People burning to death and general fire/burning warnings.


	2. Depression and Chill / Not a Dog Person

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wanted to knock this out a little early since the prologue's kinda a different tone from the rest of the story, so quicker chapter this week! For future chapters, I'm going to tryyyy to post every other week until I run out of backlog.
> 
> Anyway, content warnings at the end of the chapter!

**CHAPTER 1**

**Crowley Indulges in Depression and Chill**

After one hundred and eighty-nine episodes of _Cutthroat Kitchen_ , Crowley was both astounded by humanity’s ingenuity at creating such a gentle but still ultimately evil form of chaos, and rather put out that he hadn’t thought of it himself. It had been far more delightful to watch than the ninety episodes (and twenty-eight specials) of _Great British Bake Off_ that he’d binged last week, and nearly as entertaining as the ninety-two episodes of _Kitchen Nightmares_ the week before that.

What could he binge next… Oh, _Worst Cooks in America_ looked promising.

“Crowley, are you still watching that?” Aziraphale had his hands full of books and his glasses pushed up into his curls. He’d taken to rolling his sleeves up in the unusually hot summer and it was still weird to see his elbows after centuries of long coats and button-ups.

“You said you didn’t mind so long as I watched a foodie one from time-to-time!”

“Yes, but that was,” he glanced out the windows, trying to remember how long he’d gotten caught up in his latest project. (A tome restoration from the Qin dynasty that he was helping to recover and had promised to do an English translation for when it was in better condition.) “Nearly a month ago!”

Seven weeks, but who was counting. “Afraid it’ll melt my brain? That’s just a myth our side made up.”

Aziraphale set his books on an already overflowing table and laid his glasses on top of those. Crowley scrambled back as Aziraphale joined him on the couch, one leg propped up on the cushions so he could face Crowley completely. A nice change of pace, since it had been a week and a half since he’d last bothered to notice Crowley was in the shop with him.

“Would you pause that, dear?”

He did, and Aziraphale gently placed the remote on the end table, wrapping his hands around Crowley’s.

“You’ve been rather at loose ends lately.”

Crowley scoffed.

“You _have_ ,” Azirphale pressed, rubbing slow circles into his skin.

“You’re _handling_ me angel. That’s incredibly offensive and I don’t like it, and you know that.”

“It’s completely understandable. You’ve spent six thousand years—”

“Oh for—Fine, I’ll watch telly at my own place. Sorry! Thought we were allowed to spend time together now, but you’re always stuck in some _book_ , so I figured, ‘Right. Don’t disturb him. Keep yourself busy, it’s not a problem,’ but evidently, it is. So whatever. I’ll get out of your hair. Apologiesss for the fussss,” he hissed.

When he tried to pull away, Aziraphale’s thumbs pressed into his palm. Just enough to sting. He paused, stared back into those intense blue eyes, and slumped back into his seat.

“You’ve been out of sorts since we retired.”

“Haven’t.” Aziraphale gave him a withering stare until Crowley flung his spare hand in the air with a jaunty wave and an aggrieved, “ _Go on_.”

“Are you sure, dear? I wouldn’t want to upset you.”

Ahh, there was the bastard in him coming out. “ _Yes_ , angel. Whatever you want to say, I’ll listen.”

The clock ticked as Aziraphale waited, as if testing his resolve to keep his mouth shut. Which he could do incredibly well, thanks so much! Only most people didn’t have anything very interesting to say.

Fine. He sat back on the cushions and focused on Aziraphale’s thumbs, still rubbing circles into the back of his hands.

“You have spent six thousand years watching over your shoulder for both of us. I am incredibly grateful for that, love. Thank you.”

Crowley huffed. The spider plant behind Aziraphale needed to be watered. Maybe placed in a bigger pot. It was growing significantly larger than the pot was designed to hold. He was so proud of his little rebel.

“Dear?” Aziraphale’s fingers were on his glasses, and Crowley flinched, snapping back. Aziraphale sighed, hand retreating. “Crowley, you need a hobby. There’s no one coming after us and no orders from Hell to carry out. You need something to fill your time.”

“Wouldn’t be a problem if you weren’t always so busy with your books,” Crowley pouted. And he knew he was pouting. Knew he was folding in on himself like Warlock because -- no, he was getting distracted. Focus here. Focus on Aziraphale.

His angel only smiled and patted his knee. “I will make more time for you, dear. I did get rather caught up in all the projects I missed while we were globe-trotting, and I’m sorry for that.”

Damn straight.

“We’ve also gone decades without seeing one another, and it’s never bothered you before.”

How dare he. “Can’t I just kick back and enjoy my retirement for a bit without getting psychoanalyzed? I don’t see why you’re being so fussy all of a sudden.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Aziraphale patted his knee again and pushed himself off the couch into a stretch. “Oh, it’s gotten quite late,” he mused, the setting sun glazing his hair in soft reds and purples. “Be a dear and help me put these books away, won’t you? Then dinner? I was thinking Greek tonight.”

“Mmm.” Crowley peeled himself off the couch and miracled himself a wrinkle free shirt. He’d been wearing the old one for three weeks straight. “Fine, but not the one on Clark’s Street. Their wine selection is terrible.” He picked the first few books off the top and let Aziraphale contend with the rest of the stack. “And we have to go to Gionni’s after. You owe me gelato after putting up with that display.

Aziraphale miracled the OPEN sign to CLOSED and the deadbolt locked.

“Yes, love.”

What Aziraphale didn’t understand was that Crowley had a routine, same as him: Mist and shout at the plants in the morning (shred as necessary). Start some nonsense fight on Twitter (the YouTube makeup war was his proudest squabble yet). Check their joint mail (remember Ashtoreth hadn’t received in card in five years and he should stop expecting any more to show up). Hangout at the bookshop till evening (check to see if the wards needed mending). Dinner with Angel (unless he was too caught up to notice Crowley was there). Return to his flat. (Rinse and repeat.)

It was mundane, it was repetitive, it was safe. It was what people did in their retirement.

Okay, maybe he hated it.

It had been easier to pass the time when they were doing their two year world tour-slash-honeymoon. Plenty of sights to see and old memories to unearth. When his thoughts got too noisy, he just took a nap for a bit and reset. But they’d been back for months now, and he’d already cycled through an array of hobbies. He could juggle chainsaws now! Not much use for it, but it had killed six days worth of boredom.

Crowley flipped through the advertisements, briefly considering an ad for balloon animals lessons. Must have gotten on that mailing list when Aziraphale ordered the magician’s kit years ago. He could make balloon animals.

No, even he wasn’t that desperate.

He dropped the mail in the bin and adjusted his sprawl on the high back chair behind the register. Aziraphale’s armchairs were much softer and cozier than his throne at home. He considered stealing this one for himself, but then he wouldn’t have an excuse to keep coming by for the afternoons… Oh, he didn’t need an excuse anymore.

One day the novelty of that would wear off. Hopefully not soon, though.

Maybe he’d be a snake for the afternoon. His brain was always quieter then, and there was an excellent patch of sunlight streaming through the south window that he could curl up in.

“Crowley?” There was a rustle of papers beside him.

“Mmm?” he replied, eyes shut and mind halfway to a cozy nap.

“What’s this?”

“Me, settling in for the day.”

“ _Crowley_.”

He opened one very cross eye to peer at the letter in Aziraphale’s hand. Bright orange envelope with big blocky letters. “‘s from Adam. ‘nother birthday invite, I expect.”

“Another? How many has he sent?”

Crowley pretended to count, as if he didn’t know off hand that both boys were turning fourteen in a week. “Third, I guess. One each year.” Aziraphale stared at him, and Crowley could feel a lecture coming on. “Oh bless it angel, I threw them away! We met for, what, ten minutes? And spent most of that arguing who was going to kill him. _You_ pointed a gun at him for most of it. Seemed a weird invite to attend, don’t you think?”

“It was thoughtful of him to invite us!”

“We were on the other side of the planet!” And touring the stars for a few weeks.

“We should have at least sent a gift by mail. It’s only polite.” Aziraphale sliced the envelope open and glanced over the invite. His face broke into a warm smile, wrinkles deepening around his cheeks, and Crowley flopped back into his chair with a huff. They would certainly be going to Adam’s birthday party this year, and Crowley could think of plenty of other loud, bratty teenagers he’d rather be around than the Antichrist and his three mouthy friends.

Well, at least one teenager he’d rather be around.

* * *

**Warlock is Not a Dog Person**

Humans, even living humans, do not die in Hell. Earth is Death’s domain. This does not, however, prevent humans from starving and dehydrating, nor does it protect them from the tedium of silence. Not that Warlock was plagued with that particular form of tedium. No, he was locked up next to the Hounds of Hell, and desperately wished for silence after days of endless snapping, growling, and pacing from his neighbors. Neighbors he knew would eat him if there weren’t thick stone walls between them.

After the fires at Megiddo and the permanent stench of human flesh had scoured itself into the depths of Warlock’s nostrils, Hastur had dragged him down through the earth beneath the demon’s feet. The world had gone dark. And when Warlock had dragged Hastur’s hands off his eyes, he’d found them in the basement of some dank, dripping building, surrounded by other strange people in beat up trench coats with animals stuck to their head like weird performance art.

“LIGUR!”

Hastur had dragged Warlock between the cramped cubicles, past some dark butterfly with eyes like a disco ball and a man hunched over like an igor, his face slack and the sloth on his head moving ever so slowly across his arched dome. When they had stopped, it was before a dark man with a chameleon on his head, bright orange to match his eyes. Or maybe the eyes matched the chameleon. Either way, the chameleon’s eyes remained trained on Warlock as the human eyes shifted to Hastur, and both man and chameleon turned a dark wine red.

“What’s this, then? Where’s the Antichrist?”

“Crowley’s betrayed us. Swapped our Lord’s child with some... _human_ child.”

“Crowley? You’re sure?”

“It reeks of him.”

Hastur had dragged Warlock forward and Ligur leaned in close, sniffling along his bangs.

“Get away from me you creeps!” He batted at the chameleon man who rippled to a bright orange-yellow, and Warlock shrank under the glare. When he looked up at Hastur’s dark, endless eyes, he saw a second pair growing out of the man’s head. A large frog tucked into the roots of his hair, glaring down at him. The frog grew and belted a _riiiiibbit!_ Warlock tugged uselessly against Hastur’s grip. “Let me go! _Let me go!!_ ”

“Annoying little thing,” Ligur had said before smothering Warlock’s mouth with a single hand, fingers digging bruises into the boy’s cheeks. “A shame we need it for evidence. Where’s the dog?”

“Must be with the real boy. It wasn’t at Megiddo.”

“Hmm,” Ligur mused, his fingers squeezing across Warlock’s jaw the way one might play with a stress ball. “Crowley first. Armageddon will happen, wherever our Master’s son is. But traitors must be dealt with.”

“Where do we store the spare?”

“We did have a space recently open up.”

Compared to the cramped “office” above, Warlock ought to be grateful for the expanse of his empty little prison, but after days of solitude, he was cold, hungry, and so parched for thirst he’d stopped opening his mouth at all. Every movement only ripped the papery skin of his lips open to bleed down his chin. He’d also stopped jumping every time the hellhounds next door snapped and growled, it had become almost a comforting background noise. But his heart still skipped a beat at meal times when they became rabid, howling beasts, and the smell was a constant rolling putrid scent he could never quite adjust to.

Sometimes he tried to sleep, just to make time pass faster, but he struggled with it. Almost like he’d forgotten how to do it. He didn’t get tired, and with no clock to check it was impossible to know if he was truly losing hours or closing his eyes while minutes ticked by. Only his hunger marked the days, and that too was impossible to track as the endless gnawing in his belly became his new normal.

When the window to his little cell opened up, Warlock could have cried in relief, but he was too thirsty to even croak. Two dark eyes with lashes like paintbrushes filled the few inches of light.

“Hello,” they said, waving genially.

“Whu…” he moaned in reply, and his jaw popped painfully. He hadn’t realized he’d been clenching his teeth until he felt the sore ache it left behind.

“Sorry, I think Duke Hastur forgot about you, and Acquisitions is moving really slow on key check-out. We sort of invented bureaucracy.” Warlock would later learn bureaucracy was actually an unconscious joint collaboration between Heaven and Hell, but right now he didn’t care about that. “Can I get you anything while you wait?”

“Whu…” he tried again, waving a weak hand at his mouth.

“Oh right, you guys do the whole eating-drinking thing. Hang on a tick.”

The window slammed shut, and the loneliness seemed somehow worse after a second of interaction, but Warlock clung tight to the promise of food and water. He wrapped his arms around his knees and trembled against the cold and the fear he would be forgotten again.

She’d never written him back. He was only eight, and not very good at remembering to write her, but still, he’d tried. Any time he was sad or lonely, which had been a lot. Maybe his mother had written her address down wrong. Maybe she gave him the wrong address on purpose. Maybe she knew Nanny would never write him back.

Why was he thinking of her now? He’d locked her up years ago like the stuffed animals his parents had donated when he was too old for them. Had they expected him to be tough and strong through this? Was he allowed to be a little kid crying for his nanny right now?

 _Nanny, I miss you_ , he thought as the little window crashed open again.

“Couldn’t find much, but I got you some water and a bowl of clam chowder.”

The chowder was cold and the water was warm, but both slipped down Warlock's throat like the sweetest honey. He guzzled the water too quickly and coughed on it, feeling it burn through his nostrils.

"Oh, is that choking?" The person with fluttery lashes was still peering at him through the small grate. Warlock nodded. "Wow, She made some weird choices with anatomy. That seems dangerous."

"Wh—" Warlock croaked before falling into a fit of coughs that Eyelashes sat through patiently. "Where am I?"

"Oh, you're in Hell."

It certainly felt that way.

"Seriously, with the demons and hellfire and stuff. Proper Hell. Capital H.”

"Are you a demon?"

They nodded. "We're Legion. We uhh... Well you probably haven't heard of us, we haven't had a chance to do any big evil yet, but that's not our fault. Everyone was clocking hours in the early 1000s, and we were still figuring out corporations. Still are, truth be told," they frowned, pulling at their jacket, though Warlock suspected they'd be pulling at their skin if they could. "These weren't designed for multiples. We can never seem to get comfy. But we did some cool possessions back in the day!"

"Okay," replied Warlock, because he wasn't particularly sure what else you were supposed to say to something like that. “Legion’s a funny name.”

“We also go by Eric,” they offered. Then more quietly, “That’s still a cool name, right?”

“Yeah,” Warlock nodded. “Kinda... Normal.”

“Is that bad?”

Warlock shrugged. “Why am I here?”

“You weren’t the Antichrist.”

The chameleon man had said that, too. Talked a lot about “their lord’s son” or whatever. “What does that even mean? What’s the Antichrist?”

“He’s, well, he’s _His_ son,” Lashes says, pointing downward. “He was supposed to be given to your parents, the American ambassadors, but the switch was sabotaged.”

Warlock’s toes curled, and cold bit into the soles of his right foot. He wished more than ever that he had both his shoes and maybe a thick, cozy blanket to curl around himself. Not that it would have warmed him against this kind of cold. This kind of cold settled deep into the bones and made his blood run thin and his heart race against his ribs. “How is,” he paused, fumbling for the name, “ _Crowley’_ involved?”

“Oooh, he’s the one that sabotaged the switch,” Lashes frowned. “He’s gone native. Don’t go mentioning him around here if you want to keep your tongue.”

Warlock nodded, his hands trembling in his armpits where he’d stuffed them to keep them warm.

“Anyway, I’ve got to go. You should give me your cup and bowl—”

“No! Please don’t leave! Please don’t leave me here!” Warlock’s voice cracked instantly. The water had helped, but it wasn’t enough. He was still cold and thirsty, and so hungry his stomach wanted desperately to vomit the little food he’d had. “Please, please, please, you have to get me out!”

“I’ll be back soon! Can’t get the keys from Acquisitions if I’m here, can I?”

Warlock was too tired and too thirsty to cry. He passed the bowl and cup back through the window, and lay against the door, listening to Eric bound back up the stairs. They’d be back soon. They’d return and let Warlock out and he’d be able to go home and just forget everything that happened. It would all be a bad dream.

But his Mom and Dad were dead. He didn’t have anyone. Where do orphan kids go before they die on the streets?

Warlock’s toes cramped against the cold, and he pulled his sneaker off the left foot and slipped it on the right. The bend in the toe hurt, but the warmth was a tiny balm as he shook with rolling tremors. When the prison doors opened again, Warlock had swapped his shoe back, and was too tired to even tremble at the howls next door.

“Eric!” he shouted as the grate scraped back. “Please—”

But the deep black eyes that stared back at him weren’t nearly as friendly as Legion.

“Move,” Hastur growled, and Warlock scrambled to his feet, dashing to the far side of the tiny cell. A whole two meters of space between him and the frog man— _demon_ , he reminded himself.

The door swung open and Hastur glared down at him.

“Come with me.”

No. Warlock didn’t want to leave. He was rooted to the cold, cold floors, but they were far more comforting than the hot lick of flames had been.

“SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOUR HEARING?”

“N-No!”

Warlock scampered behind Hastur, trailing a few steps behind him. Just out of arm’s reach. The cell door slammed shut and Hastur led him up the stone stairs, to the next level of Hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Starvation, dehydration, sleep deprivation, and general cruelty to a minor.
> 
> Lore Stuff!
> 
> So I've spent waaaay too much time developing Hell in this fic because I just have zero self-control, and despite how much stuff gets shoved in this fic, there's even more details I didn't actually have space to add. So... I'm sharing it all in the footnotes!
> 
> Eric/Legion is the "Disposable Demon" from the show, and I've stolen a lot of my lore and headcanons about them from [ineffably-in-love](https://ineffably-in-love.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. ([Part 1](https://ineffably-in-love.tumblr.com/post/185881526738/good-omens-headcanons-disposable-demon) and [Part 2](https://ineffably-in-love.tumblr.com/post/186766671178/more-good-omens-headcanons-disposable-demon))
> 
> Both posts are an excellent read, and Eric needs more love in general, so give 'em a whirl and a reblog!


	3. Doesn't Drink Tea / Fire and Food

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh, the requisite, "Aziraphale is the Guardian Angel of the SoHo Gays" chapter, lol. I have nothing to add here except I love their wonderful queer children~ (Meanwhile, stuff gets worse for Warlock.)
> 
> Also there's a lot of use of ze/zir and ve/ver pronouns in this chapter. (And future ones.) It's my first time using nb pronouns other than they/them, so extra levels of let-me know-if-I-missed-a-pronoun-somewhere.
> 
> Content warnings in the footnotes!

**CHAPTER 2**

**Crowley Doesn’t Drink Tea**

“You can’t open Adam’s presents. It’s _his_ birthday,” Pepper chided, taking advantage of her growth spurt from last year to hoist the small box well over Brian’s head.

“Adam said I could, didn’t you Adam?”

“I don’t mind,” said the birthday boy, who was too busy playing with his dog on the lawn to care very much about the stack of presents his mother was building next to the birthday cake.

“‘I don’t mind’ isn’t the same thing as an enthusiastic yes!”

Adam laughed. “Enthusiastically yes, then. It’s from Wensleydale anyway, so it’s bound to be a book, probably about saving for university or something. Oh, opening your first savings account!”

“Hey, I tried really hard this year!”

Wensleydale _had_ gotten Adam a book for his birthday, but it turned out to be an adventure story about pirates and Atlantis, so he was saved from too much ribbing from his friends.

"Tea, dear?"

Crowley grunted and Aziraphale set the spare cup by his elbow. He wouldn't drink it, but the morning was brisk and the cup would keep his hands warm.

"You seem deep in thought."

"Not really. Just observing humans in their natural habitat."

"Yes, the children are quite spirited, aren't they?" Brian and Pepper had just commandeered the Nerf guns Adam unwrapped and were chasing each other around the yard with them.

"Mmm. They've gotten big."

"Well it has been three years," he replied rather prickly. “Humans grow rather quickly, especially at his age."

"Mmm."

Crowley was so lost in his thoughts, he didn't notice Aziraphale's hand on his until he felt a gentle squeeze against his knuckles.

"Angel!" Crowley hissed, cheeks red, both embarrassed he hadn't noticed, and ashamed at his natural instinct to pull away. Three years on their own side and he still hasn't shaken the paranoia of being watched.

Aziraphale smiled patiently and kept his warm hand tucked around Crowley. "Please tell me what's on your mind, dear. You're clearly distracted."

Crowley flipped his hand over and laced their fingers as he considered lying.

"Love?"

Ugh, cheating bastard. "Warlock,” Crowley admitted.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"We agreed—"

"Yeah, I know." Crowley had been the one to suggest they leave. He'd known he was getting too close to the boy. He'd been the one to swear (albeit silently to himself) not to look for him after the apocalypse. They'd already messed up his life enough. He deserved something normal. Something like this. Three best friends and a dog chasing him around a cozy backyard. Hopefully now he had those things. A tiny chunk of normalcy back. "Still…"

"We could look after him, you know. See that he's alright after,” Aziraphale’s pinky ring glinted as he waved his hand through the air, “Well... everything."

“We really shouldn’t.”

“No interference. Just a quick pop ‘round one afternoon. We won’t even leave the Bentley if you don’t want to.”

“Said I wouldn’t.”

Aziraphale slid the miraculously still warm tea into Crowley’s hands, and sipped on his own miraculously refilled cup. “Just think about it, love. You can decide later.”

“Won’t change my mind.”

What Aziraphale refused to understand was that Crowley had already done irreparable damage to Warlock's life, and any further interference would only make it worse. Going to Adam's birthday party had confirmed what Crowley had suspected since the airbase: The Youngs were excellent parents, and Adam was (revoltingly) nice and kind and good, and all sorts of other four letter words.

“Anthony, I left the kettle on. Could you fetch the tea for us?”

And the worst part is, that's what saved the world. Crowley's _glad_ Adam was the Antichrist, because Warlock probably wouldn't have resisted his powers. Too much Hellish influence. Too much Crowley. That's why they'd left early, wasn't it?

“Please dear?”

Crowley ambled to the kitchen and grabbed the warm pot of tea that Aziraphale had not left so much as miracled into existence thirty seconds ago. He’d considered turning into a snake before Aziraphale's "book club" arrived, but Ace had been annoyingly early and he'd lost his opportunity.

"Oh thank you, dear." Aziraphale kissed his cheek as he took the tray, and Crowley hoped he looked rather suave through it. Aziraphale was always more demonstrative around the Tuesday evening book club. Something about being a good example of a happy, middle-aged, gay-adjacent couple and the whole "it gets better" spiel or whatever.

He didn’t mind, it was just... an adjustment.

Aziraphale set out the tea cups and made a cute little display of the biscuits and sweets and Ace ushered in the regular gaggle of bright haired kids.

“Is Anthony Jr. around this week, Mr. Fell?” asked Sophia, her black hair streaked with red this week.

“No, I expect he’ll be curled up in his terrarium for the afternoon.” Aziraphale glanced rather obviously at Crowley. How he ever thought he was covert enough to spy on Nazis in the 40s…

“Shame, I wanted to show him off to Nash.” She elbowed the boy with curly green hair beside her.

“Perhaps another time.”

As soon as Aziraphale’s back was turned, Sophia glanced pointedly at Crowley and loudly whispered, “I told you—you’ll never see them in the same place at the same time.”

Crowley hissed at the pair and Nash laughed.

The kids were too exuberant for Crowley’s mood, so he sprawled in the reading nook near the front. Bookshelves blocked him from sight, but he could still doze to the white noise of chatter and bursts of laughter. He could lose time and float for a bit while his brain quieted down.

“Hey, Anthony.”

“I’m asleep,” he grumbled.

Sophia poked his cheek. “You’re not.”

“Yeah, and whose fault is that?”

Her voice was suddenly soft. “Could you do me a favor?”

Crowley glanced at the door as Ace left, waving as ve jogged off. “Done already?”

“Yeah.” She waited, but when Crowley made no movement to reply, she continued, “Nash is... well he’s going through some stuff, and he needs someone to talk to, and I don’t know what more I can do. I thought you and Ezra might be able to help him or have some advice or something. Would you talk to him?”

“Just you two left?” She nodded. He sat up and pulled a fiver from his wallet. “Forgot to grab milk at the store earlier. Think you could get it for us? Whole milk, full gallon. Shop’s on the corner.”

“Thank you!” She hugged him and the angle was weird, but she bounded out the door before he could make a snarky comment about it.

Nash popped his head out of the kitchen, glancing around. “Did Sophia just leave?”

“Only running down to the store. She’ll be back in a minute. Go sit down, I’ll finish cleaning up.” Nash made some lukewarm protests, but Crowley had been perfecting his glare for a few thousand years. As soon as the human was out of the kitchen, Crowley snapped and the dishes were cleaned and put away.

“Thank you dear!” Aziraphale wiped his hands on a towel more out of human ritual than anything. He glanced over at Crowley, “Has something happened?”

“Sophia asked that we talk to Nash. Seems he’s going through a rough patch.”

“Ah, I thought his aura seemed peaky,” Aziraphale replied with a sad smile. “Always so much work to do.” He waved his hand and the tea tray refilled itself with cups of warm cocoa. “Let’s see what we can do, shall we?”

Aziraphale bustled back into the front room and set the tray across from Nash, settling in with an open chair to his left for Crowley’s usual spot. Nash sat straighter, now on edge, and Crowley couldn’t blame him. The warm atmosphere from earlier had been abruptly replaced with an aura somewhere between a job interview and a parent-teacher conference.

“Am I in trouble?” Nash asked, glancing between the two of them.

“Oh no, dear boy!” Aziraphale flapped a hand before folding both in front of him. “Rather, we like to keep an eye on the youth around here, and I’m rather keenly attuned to when someone’s having a bad time of it. We wanted to check in with you.”

“What? Oh no, I’m fine! I’m sorry, I didn’t spoil the mood, did I?” All the joy of the afternoon fell away in moments as he stared up sad and ashamed.

“Not at all.” Aziraphale slid him a mug of cocoa with a soft smile. “It’s—well let’s just say I can see auras,” he said with a wink, “and yours seemed heavy. You needn’t talk about it if you don’t want to of course, but I’m here to listen if you do.”

Nash considered this, stirring his cocoa to stall for time. He seemed the stubborn sort, and he probably would have gotten away saying nothing on the subject if Aziraphale hadn’t been cheating, using his angelic influence.

“It’s my da,” he sighed, his spoon clattering in the mug. “I moved out soon as I was eighteen, and didn’t seem to be a problem then. Wiped our hands clean of each other and moved on, I thought. Only he’s been coming ‘round lately and harrassing me out of the blue. Showed up at my flat the other day. One look at him stomping ‘round the front of the place and I ran to Sophia’s before he could spot me. Haven’t been back since.”

Aziraphale patted his shoulder and slid him the plate of biscuits. He skipped over them and took a toffee instead, sucking on the sweet while his hands fiddled with the wrapper.

“He hasn’t done anything,” Nash assured them suddenly. “A lot of hollering, but that’s all.”

“Never stops at ‘hollering,’” Crowley hissed. Aziraphale squeezed his hand, and he shifted his glare to the window. No need to scare Nash further.

“Do you live alone?”

Nash shook his head. “I moved in with some mates who ain’t too friendly with their folks either. They’ve been great. I mean, Miles is rubbish at doing dishes, but that’s the worst of it.”

“It’s good to have friends who can support you.” Nash couldn’t see it, but Aziraphale’s essence glowed warm and bright. A small blessing for kind friends. What a sap. “Still, that’s a lot to handle. Do you have any adults you can turn to? An aunt or uncle perhaps?”

“Not really…”

“No one?” Crowley pressed.

Nash crinkled his wrapper. “I mean, my mum had a sister… But I haven’t seen her in, I don’t know, eight years? Not even sure she remembers me.”

“It never hurts to reach out,” Aziraphale said. “I’m sure she’d be delighted to hear from you.”

Nash was already shaking his head. “She doesn’t—”

“This aunt of yours,” Crowley interjected, “How often did you see her?”

“I don’t—um, a few times a week I guess? She came over to help when my mum was sick and Dad was at work. Made us dinner and kept the house clean, mostly.”

“Helped you with homework?”

“Yeah. Well, not geography,” Nash grinned, the wrapper going still in his hands. “She couldn’t find Portugal on a map to save her life. But maths and stuff.”

“Played any games? Watched movies?”

“Mum didn’t want me watching lots of telly, but we’d make forts and she’d read to me. When we were covering Shakespeare at school she’d act out scenes with me in the living room. We choreographed sword fights and everything. It was brilliant!”

“She misses you too, I’ll bet.”

Nash shuttered to a stop, hands fiddling with his wrapper again. “Then why disappear?”

“Right after your mum died?”

Nash nodded.

“Because adults are stupid, as stupid as kids, and they make bad decisions. Only they’re more aware of time and the way a bad decision compounds the longer you’ve decided to stick to it. Everyday it’s a little bit harder to go back and fix it. Every day you worry your kids will resent you more, so you ignore them and hope one day they’ll forget you entirely. It’s the easier way.” Crowley stopped abruptly, staring out the front windows of the shop, keenly aware that Aziraphale was squeezing his hand a little bit tighter.

Don’t ask the stupid, obvious, insufferable question. Be a bright boy. Drop it.

“Do you have kids, Mr. Crowley?”

“No.”

Crowley jerked to his feet and stalked to the back of the store, not particularly put out about bad manners—he was a demon after all. He could hear Aziraphale murmur to Nash, and the ring of the doorbell as Sophia came to check on them. The sun would be sinking soon, but there was still a nice sunny patch by the astronomy books. He waited till the bell rang again and the bookshop was empty before shifting. By the time Aziraphale had shuffled to the back, Crowley was draped over the top of the shelves, nose burrowed under his coils and tail dangling in front of _The Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres_.

* * *

**Warlock is Gifted Fire and Food**

Warlock hadn’t realized how much space he’d had in his tiny cell until he was back in the Leaky Basement level of Hell. Sure, the prison had been small, and even the little hallway to the staircase had been cramped, but it had been _empty_. Here there were people—demons—so thick and close to one another that he’d stopped even nodding in apology when he bumped into passersby. (And anyway, they glared at him any time he tried to be polite, so he kept his eyes down and scuttled after Hastur and his long-long legs.)

The scent up here was no better than the stench in the cell, but it was different. Warlock wasn’t sure whether or not to be grateful for that as he gagged on this new smell that was less “rotted flesh” and more “unwashed feet covered in fungus.”

Warlock had to speed up and keep closer to Hastur to avoid losing him in the thick crowds. Instinctually he wanted to grab the man’s jacket, but he kept his hands curled tight and close.

Though he’d had no idea where they might be going, Warlock didn’t expect them to stop at a desk, same as the other sixty or seventy they’d just passed. He didn’t even realize they’d reached their destination until Hastur nearly ripped his arm out of his socket and slammed him against the edge of the table, bending his spine too far back and twisting his wrist above his head.

Warlock screamed. His yeowl peeled down into words, “GET OFF ME YOU—” sorry Nanny, “—PIECE OF SHIT. OWW! LET ME GO, ASSHOLE!” He kicked out at Hastur and tried to wriggle off the desk or out of his hold. “HELP! HELP ME, PLEASE!” he screeched at the passing demons, but none of them seemed to notice. None of them stopped. Nobody helped.

Hastur grimaced at the screaming and punched Warlock so hard his head snapped back and cracked against the desk. His entire body went slack in the breath of a moment.

“SHUT UP, YOU LITTLE WEASEL.”

That might have been overkill, but Warlock was currently seeing eight Hasturs and was too equally terrified of all of them to consider sassing any of them.

“Better,” Hastur grumbled, and when he let go of Warlock, the boy just lay there limp, blinking up at the ceiling tiles and trying to remember which muscle was connected to his tongue.

“Right, let’s see what the flash bastard’s done,” Hastur mumbled to himself as he lit up his fingers, and Warlock felt the warmth of fire and the smell of acid in his nose. The demon pressed his fingers into Warlock’s cheek and it was warm, hot, too hot -- his jacket collar smouldered, but his skin wouldn’t burn.

Hastur snapped his fingers. It was unclear if he snapped out of anger or if it was meant to do something, but either way nothing happened. He snapped a few more times while Warlock counted ceiling tiles, wishing to himself that they’d stop moving quite so much. Water dripped off a tile and splashed against his cheek where Hastur had tried to burn him. He wished it had dropped on his tongue, though he still couldn’t remember where he’d left it…

“Shit!” Hastur fell against the desk behind him, glaring at the prone child as he pulled out a cigarette and dragged a strong pull of smoke. He bit his thumb as he thought. “These wards will take ages to weaken! What do we do in the meantime?” He paused, as if waiting for a reply. Warlock had none—was still trying to bite back the instinct to vomit—but the moment passed.

“This is no fun.” He grabbed Warlock’s ankle and twisted, dragging him forward. Warlock whimpered, already feeling the skin bruise under Hastur’s fingers.

Warlock curled his toes instinctually, acutely aware that Hastur had grabbed the foot without a shoe. “Please…”

Before he even knew what to beg for, Hastur pressed his cigarette deep into the soft sole of his foot. Warlock cried. He hiccupped with tears and bawled for his mother, his father, his nanny—he wriggled like a fish on a line, but Hastur’s fingers only locked tighter against his ankle as the brand smouldered completely out against his skin.

The cigarette butt flew over Warlock’s head as he sucked in gulps of air so huge the table below him rattled with the effort. The ceiling blurred with concussion and tears till it was a mess of lines scribbled like a child with a crayon.

“Found some fun at last,” the demon giggled.

Warlock flinched at the snap of fingers and he couldn’t bear to look up and watch Hastur as the demon lit his second cigarette.

The smell of smoke filled his nostrils and Warlock tried to retreat to anywhere else. His grandfather’s pipes. His father’s cigars. Nanny. Nanny. Just Nanny, please. He was trying so hard to be big and adult, and to just handle this like a man was supposed to, but as the second cigarette burned right next to the first, flakes of ash landing on the still burning flesh, Warlock gave in to the childish blubbering.

He wanted to be curled up in his nanny’s arms, protected from the world. Cry to someone who would listen and never chide him for his tears. Nanny made him happy, no matter how sad he was. She didn’t have to do anything, she just had to be there—be here—right now. Please, Nanny!

Please…

“HASTUR!”

Warlock jerked at the shout, blinking at the ceiling that still swam above him, but not quite so badly as before. His whole body throbbed so deeply that it was hard to tell how bad his foot and head were feeling, and every twitch caused his muscles to ache and his brain to do a somersault, so he laid still, save for a small roll of the head to see who had intervened.

“What is this about a living human you’ve dragged down here?” the high voice screeched, and Warlock wished he had the energy to cover his ears.

Hastur, at least, had lost his happy glee and now stood at attention with a surly scowl. “M’lord—”

“You know the laws!” The newcomer was short, nearly Warlock’s height, but every demon in the room still stood silent and still around zir. Ze didn’t have an animal on their head like so many of the other demons, but flies circled the short demon’s head and ze had festering boils scoured across zirs nose and cheeks. “This is a restricted area, where humans aren’t allowed. And we do not take souls from our master. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME, DUKE HASTUR?”

“Yes, but—”

“I don’t know where I’ve lost you, Hastur, but there is no questioning of command in Hell. I will not have insubordination spreading through my ranks.”

“The traitor—”

Zirs blue eyes flashed molten, like hellfire, and Warlock trembled as zir voice grew so loud as to make the hallways shake, and loose gravel rain down. Many of the demons watching scattered down the dark corridors.

“THE TRAITOR IS BEING DEALT WITH. IF YOU ARE CONCERNED WITH MY EFFICACY, I WILL BE SURE YOU ARE NEXT.”

“USE IT!” Hauster squeaked, scrambling to snag Warlock and drag him up between them. “Look, Lord Beelzebub, it belongs to Crowley. The traitor warded it! Look!”

Warlock got the impression that if he started crying again he might be killed on the spot, but the glare from Beelzebub was too intense and he stared at his feet, trying not to whimper when ze leaned to sniff him and his bangs fluttered against his cheek. He wanted to vomit, but the only thing he’d eaten was porridge, and he didn’t know if that was hours or days ago.

Beelzebub leaned back and Warlock gasped before biting his lip to stay silent.

“And what exactly is your plan with it, hmm? Torture it for a bit and then kill it?”

Hastur shifted and grumbled in a manner that seemed to be mean, “Yes. What’s wrong with that?”

“Short-sighted… The lot of you! You’re short sighted and incompetent! Remember that!” A murmur of agreement goes up from the crowd of remaining demons. Ze grabbed Warlock’s chin and twisted it this way and that, as if examining him. “You’re wasting an opportunity here if you just kill it. I’ve got better plans. Come,” ze snapped, turning and walking back down the hall as the demons parted to make space for zir.

Hastur grabbed Warlock by the jacket and dragged him after as Warlock hobbled on his abused foot, trying desperately to avoid the burns and failing with each step.

The stairs were the hardest, and he almost wished they would just drag him down on his back. The distressed skin on his foot ripped open in the offices, and he’s sure he left bloody footprints in his wake. (Is even more sure they’re not the first set to scour the floors of Hell.) The cold, unfinished concrete on the stairs ripped up his foot further, and by the time they reached the bottom, the only thing stopping Warlock from collapsing was Hastur’s hand fisted in the back of his jacket, holding him high enough he had to support his weight on his toes.

The space they were in was dark and seemed empty until Beelzebub snapped zirs fingers and a table appeared with candles dotting the surface, illuminating the room from pitch black to very very dark gray. Beelzebub took command of his shoulder and steered him to the single place setting, shoving him in the high-back chair.

On the plate, food appeared. Bread, so stale it looked like it could chip a tooth. Meat that was gray and smelled putrid. Fruit, rotting in its own juices. Even the glass of water looked suspiciously murky.

Beelzebub stared at him expectantly. “Eat! You eat, don’t you?” Ze asked it in the way his father asked him, “You have a brain, don’t you? Figure it out!”

“I can’t eat this!” Warlock sneered back, and his heart stopped beating even as he said it. “Are you kidding me? This is disgusting! No way.” His teeth chattered as he pressed his lips together, hoping his whole body wasn’t shaking with fear.

Beelzebub squeezed out a smile so tight and forced it prickled the hairs on the back of Warlock’s neck. “You eat, or I will make you eat. Yes?”

The food festered on his plate.

The meat wasn’t so bad if he stuck to the middle bits where it was least gray. If he soaked the bread in the fruit juice, maybe it would soften up. And with less juice, the fruit ought to be less slimy. He’d drank out of rivers before when he’d forgotten his water bottle on fishing trips with his dad—that had to be pretty similar to this murky glass. And if he hadn’t died of starvation yet, he wasn’t likely to die of food poisoning, right?

“Yes,” he mumbled, picking the worst of the meat off with his fingers.

“See, we understand each other.” And ze clapped zirs hand on Warlock’s shoulder.

The plate was disgusting, but the first touch of meat on his tongue must have reminded his body that he needed food, for he started shoveling it in his mouth, too focused to notice the way he crunched through the bread or the way the bruised fruit turned soft and liquid in his mouth.

The demons stood behind his chair, out of sight, watching him devour the food. They had invented gluttony afterall, but so rarely found use for it themselves.

“Now that you’ve gotten that out of your system, do you think you’re ready to approach this more strategically, Hastur?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Something a little more devastating than simply killing his ward,” Beezlebub replied with that tone Warlock’s mother used when his father suggested she drop her work and fly across the world with him on a moment’s notice. “Yes, I would absolutely love to drop the Hastings account to fly to Florida and be your personal cheerleader as you golf with the president. Thanks so much for asking, sweetie!”

“But it’s human, so it’ll need to be fed and rested to be of any use. I’ll create a space on level six, no one should notice.”

Warlock swiped the last bit of bread across his plate, and—feeling full and newly emboldened—turned to Beelzebub, wiping juice off his lip. “I need new shoes, too.” He wiggled his cold toes and glared at Hastur. “Mine melted off.”

“That,” Beelzebub gestured to the table, now empty of everything but a single candle casting a weak flame across them all, “Was the last gift you’ll ever receive in Hell. From now on, if you want something, you take it. And if you can’t hold on to it, you lose it. Understood?”

Warlock gulped. “Yes.”

Ze glared down at Warlock, and he panicked, realizing he’d forgotten something, but not knowing what it could be.

“Yes... Lord Beelzebub?”

“Excellent. Get it settled, Hastur. I’ll speak to the Dark Council to discuss our next move.”

“Yes, M’lord.”

Hastur pulled Warlock to his side, hand fisted tight in his jacket. Two sets of stairs appeared and Beelzebub took the steps up while Hastur dragged Warlock down the dark steps, further into Hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Vague discussion of a bad/abusive family situation, mention of a parental death, explicit child getting punched, and explicit cigarette burns.
> 
> Lore Notes: While I'm pulling Hell lore from all over the place, this is the chapter that's Basic™ and snagged its lore from Dante's Inferno, oops. Warlock's room is on the sixth floor because the sixth circle of Hell is reserved for heretics and false prophets~


	4. Spring Cleaning / Try to Wander

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No particular content warnings for this chapter, actually! Continue in peace~

**CHAPTER 3**

**Crowley Spring Cleans**

No single individual in either human or celestial history has ever owned a hoard of material goods to rival that of the Principality Aziraphale. While he displays most of his prized possessions in his bookshop, his bedroom (mostly a closet in which he exhibits his favorite outfits through the centuries), and his upstairs office (holding the books too precious to hide away even in the downstairs back office) – the building of A. Z. Fell’s Bookshop still isn’t large enough to contain the rest of everything he owns. So a few millennia ago, Aziraphale carved out a pocket of space between the realms of the Earthly and the Celestial, which he keeps jammed full rather like the spare attic closet, garage, and shed, all at once.

Crowley, on the other hand, is a minimalist. Though he takes credit for the phenomenon of humans throwing out possessions only to regret the choice three weeks later when they finally have a use for the spare wheel that fell off their luggage six years ago—he doesn’t in fact have any hand in the process. (Though he owns several self-help and organizational books. Dostadning is a particular favorite of his, even if Death is more a human concern than an occult one.)

This particular spring cleaning had been going on for the better part of seven days. Though Crowley had relatively little to go through, he had millennia of memories to drag up with each new item, and as any spring cleaner can attest to, once you’ve sat down to flip through an old photo album, you never truly recover.

Currently he was cross-legged, cross-armed, and cross-faced in front of a small box decorated in strips of tape made of flower and vine patterns. This stare-off had been going on for the better part of three hours, as Crowley stubbornly refused to make a decision on his final possession.

He didn’t open the box. Didn’t need to. He knew inside were eight messy letters tucked safely into eight unopened envelopes locked inside one unopened box. His own personal Pandora, except he was certain no metaphor of hope was locked inside it. As he was a demon, it was sure to be temptation all the way down.

Though he had missed several minutes of knocking, he perked up when the door to his flat opened. The wards sizzled for a moment before expanding and Crowley breathed a sigh of relief at the familiar angelic essence.

He scrambled up and kicked the box back under his bed. He’d deal with it properly next year, he told himself for the fifth year in a row.

“Oh, sorry dear,” Aziraphale said when they bumped into one another at the door to Crowley’s bedroom. “You weren’t answering, so I let myself in. Did you still want to picnic today?” Though he was in denial about being sentimental, Crowley had done a “spring clean” often enough to always set up a “date” with Aziraphale ahead of time. Better than any alarm clock.

“Yep, just lost track of the time. Sorry about that, angel.” Crowley snapped and his jacket flicked across the room and squared itself perfectly on his shoulders. A little swoop and he’d stolen the basket out of Aziraphale’s hands and was marching out the flat. “Mind something in the countryside? I’m feeling up for a drive.”  
  
Aziraphale merely hummed and followed behind, giving the door a thank you pat for always remembering to lock itself when they left.

When Crowley said, “something in the countryside,” what he always meant was “heading south” to a little village they’d run across years ago with beautiful sheer black cliffs and gorgeous, empty shoreline for miles. The forests were littered with picnic spots, the cliffs were ideal for stargazing, and the beach was covered in perfect sunning rocks for lazy afternoons while Aziraphale read to the sound of crashing waves. If Aziraphale weren’t so married to his bookshop and Crowley so dedicated to the bustle of London, he’d have considered suggesting they “retire” there. At least for a few decades.

It was his favorite spot and obviously where he’d intended to go when he first joined the traffic of the M-25.

Aziraphale should have been awarded for the restraint of not commenting for the full first hour of their journey, instead focusing on and enjoying the farmland and cattle around them. But eventually that did get boring.

“Dear.”

“Mmm,” Crowley replied, gaze so intense his glasses did little to smother it.

“I feel the need to point out we’re driving to the west.”

“Yea,” he said with the airy reply of a man not really listening to the conversation.

“Well, by virtue of its name, I think it’s rather obvious the South Downs are, well, to the _south_.”

“Yea.”

“ _Crowley_ ,” Aziraphale said insistently, hand settling on Crowley’s thigh.

The Bentley swerved as Crowley came back to his own all at once. The cows, and the fencing protecting them, all had the good sense to jump back several meters as Crowley careened back onto the highway, hissing through his teeth.

He realized, rather belatedly, that his lungs had collapsed because he’d forgotten to keep breathing a few towns back. (Much in the way your teeth ache when you realize they’ve been clenched for hours.)

Aziraphale sighed. “Please pull over.”

“I don’t—I’m fine—”

“ _Crowley_.”

Crowley muttered mockingly, but pulled over on the first patch of shoulder he could find, leaving the car to idle in park. He glared out the front window and kept his eyes on the wheel as if he would peel out the moment he was annoyed with the conversation.

“Would you like to explain what’s happening right now?”

“No.”

“Fine.” Aziraphale wiggled deeper into his seat. He could wait out one of Crowley’s tantrums, and he had the benefit of a distraction for this one. He popped the lid of the picnic basket open, letting out little “ _oohs_ ” and “ _aahs_ ” as he poked through the cheeses.

“Really, Aziraphale? Those are for our lunch!”

“I wasn’t under the impression we were driving to a picnic anymore,” Aziraphale replied, voice dry as saltines before he popped a bite of brie into his mouth. “Oh delicious!”

“Sodding…” Crowley huffed and threw himself back in his seat, glaring out the front window again. He was studiously ignoring the irate cows circling the fencing near them. The Bentley’s engine was a beautiful pur to his ears. Less so to theirs. “...Estate.”

“What was that dear?” Aziraphale bit into a grape and cracker.

“Dowling Estate. That’s where I was…” Aziraphale kept his focus on the cheeses. “...what I was thinking of.”

“There’s a far more direct route.”

“We can’t get involved!” Crowley whined. “That’s what we said—” (“— _you said—_ ” ) “— _what we said._ What we agreed. We already interfered too much, and he wasn’t even the right Antichrist. We can’t go poking about now. Not after—after so long…”

His hands slipped off the wheel.

Aziraphale turned one over and set a cracker in his palm.

“We won’t interfere. He won’t ever see us. We needn’t even leave the car. But we can check in on him, if you like.”

Crowley always imagined his shades to be darker than they were and so they were usually dark enough to obscure his vision. But in this moment, Aziraphale (and the few cows who cared to notice) could see his eyes gaze out tight and pinched through the lenses. He caught Aziraphale’s hand above the cracker, just a light pressure against his knuckles.

“We can’t get involved.”

“Okay.”

“Just a quick check. To... to make sure he’s alright.”

Aziraphale pressed a kiss to his lips. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

* * *

**Warlock Tries to Wander**

The door had disappeared when Hastur left. Warlock had flung himself through the space it once had been and merely tripped through smoky air as he crumpled to the floor. He had pawed through the air for a latch, catch, or string, but the space was empty and the floor was smooth concrete. Well, rough and coarse and it bit at the tender soft of his feet, but it was one endless sheet of concrete that stretched forever, as far as he could tell around the piles of junk.

“Level six” was a dumpster of sorts, with piles of broken toys, moth-eaten blankets, shattered furniture, and quiet, constant buzz of flies that flitted about the various piles that stretched on until they were swallowed into the hazy darkness of distance.

Warlock had scampered around the junk long enough to find half of a ratty blanket and a triangular bit of metal with a jagged edge that might make for a decent weapon before he’d glanced about and realized he’d lost track of the place a door was meant to be.

“No, no, no, no, no!” he whispered, heart leaping in his throat as he darted around the trash heaps.

 _“Never wander_ , _”_ Nanny had warned him when he’d been old enough to become curious of the forest around their property. _“Those who wander get lost, and those who get lost are easy prey.”_

He’d giggled at the time, imagining grizzly bears and wolves in the woods that he would befriend with some of his father’s jerky and a few soft pats to their fur. He hadn’t understood the fear of “alone” back then. The terrifying vulnerability of it.

A bed frame leaned against one pile of trash and he scampered up, nearly tumbling back down as he stepped on a nightstand and it fell under his feet. But he jumped and scrambled off, pulling himself to the top of a wardrobe with shattered glass doors. At the top he perched, straddling the wobbly wardrobe and scouring the ground for a familiar patch. What had been near the door? He’d been stupid and forgotten to spot landmarks before he wandered. Maybe a trash can lid? Like those old circular metal bins he saw in movies. Had there been a pile of stones? No, that had just reminded him of his class trip to Coombe Abbey…

There was a sizzle to the air, like the smell of bacon and the crack of thunder, but quiet, like it was too far away to hear.

If sworn into testimony, Warlock would have been certain he’d only wandered a few piles into the garbage heap. No more than twenty feet, tops. But he was beginning to learn that Hell had its own physics and time, and the shape of everything here was just a bit...wrong.

Far away, at the edges of his vision, a spark of light shone from the newly materialized door Hastur had thrown him through. From this distance, all Warlock could spot was the silhouette of two tufts of hair molded up into triangular points. “Eric!”

The demon stopped where they stood. “What the Hell are you doing all the way in there?”

“Hang on, I’ll come to you!”

“Bet your arse you will.”

Warlock skidded down, his bare foot catching on every sliver of wood and shard of glass as he went. He winced as he landed, but tugged at the blanket tied around his waist, checked that the metal lump hadn’t fallen out of his pocket, and darted through the hills of trash toward where Eric had been.

A few times the demon had to call out to him, “Turn left!” and “No keep going, you’re about to get turned around!” The trek back must have been twice the journey he’d made going in, but eventually he was sliding to a stop in front of Eric, who looked madder than his mom after the Israeli Ambassador’s birthday. (She really hadn’t respected the amount of work he’d put into booby trapping the house to make it appear haunted.)

“What in Hell’s name were you thinking, wandering off like that? You want to be one of the Lost Ones?”

Warlock scowled. He never took well to being scolded, though what child did, really? “I’m guessing it doesn’t involve flying and sword fights.”

“Seriously, don’t mess around down here alone. It’ll turn your human head around and you’ll never get out. Even other demons won’t be able to find you.”

“Does the door always disappear after you close it?” Eric cocked their head to the side. Warlock pressed further, handing waving through the space where the door had just been. Eric laughed. “What’s so funny?”

“Sorry, it’s just—the door’s still there, you just can’t see it. Generally, only demons can see it, but if you’ve got a witch or something in the family, that’s probably why you see it while it’s in use. But uh,” and they giggled again, “It’s still there, and you look _ridiculous_ ghosting your body through it like that.”

Warlock huffed but stepped away, glaring at the empty air. “It doesn’t move, right? Just stays there all the time?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Eric said with a fluttery eye roll. “It’s not a _magic_ door.”

He’d have to mark the spot later, so he wouldn’t lose it. Stick a flag or something in the ground so he could come back to it. For now he kicked the old fashioned trash can lid near the edge of what he assumed was the doorway. Good start.

“Did you bring more food?” He just ate... well maybe a few hours ago? Had it been days? Well it didn’t matter anyway, he’d been hungry the moment they’d left Beelzebub, and he hadn’t been that full in the first place. The rotten food sat poorly in his belly. “Porridge? With cinnamon and apple slices?”

“Whoa, extravagant tastes, kid.”

Warlock would argue his dad’s penchant for $50 steaks was extravagant, but based on Hell’s running menu, he might need to re-calibrate his expectations. “Did you?”

“No, but I got something better!” Eric quirked a mischievous, lop-sided smirk and pulled a pair of sturdy work gloves out of thin air. Warlock would also have to re-calibrate his expectations on what constituted “better” in Hell. “Stop looking so blue, it’ll stick to your skin.”

“Will it?” Warlock’s hand flew to his face, squishing his cheeks. Was he going to turn demony like the rest of them and grow an animal out of his head!?

“Humans! You’re so gullible!” They slapped the gloves into Warlock’s hands and magicked themselves a second pair in sleek black leather with silver stitching. “No, haven’t got any demons down here with blue skin, I don’t think. Well, Dagon’s kinda blue-ish, but she’s also scaley. I doubt you’ll start growing scales.”

Doubt meant scales were still on the table. Warlock scratched behind his ear, suddenly itchy all over.

Eric rolled their eyes. “Oh come on you little worry-wart. Let’s get you some proper setup, shall we?” They shuttered in place for a moment, wiggling back and forth as if about to step out of their skin. And then they did, in a manner of speaking.

One Eric stayed where they were while one stepped forward, diving toward the mounds of trash. The frozen Eric wiggled and shimmered again, and another double stepped forward to a different mound of trash. This happened several times, till Warlock lost track of where the Erics were digging. Then the original—did they count as the original or was it like a worm branching off and all the segments were equally original? Warlock was eleven, not a philosopher. The final Eric pointed to the small circle of junk around the trash can lid marking the door.

“Leave the deep-diving to us or you’ll get Lost again, but you can search around the doorway. Best stuff’s always near the bottom. Not worth being Hell if you can find the needle in the haystack right on top, you know?”

Between the many of them, they dragged out a ratty old mattress that was worn out and stained, but no wires poked out to cut Warlock, and Eric ran a hand over it to make sure it was bug free. They piled on a few blankets for warmth, and clean clothes to bundle into a pillow. Warlock found a rusty boat that must have been suited for a child of the 1890s, and tucked it halfway between the mattress and the piles of junk. Just far enough it wouldn’t seem to be “his” and then get confiscated by Hastur or Beelzebub. The latter had said he should take what he wanted, but they seemed just as apt to take from him if given the chance.

One Eric pulled out a heavy book for reading, but Warlock declined and explained to them what a “phone book” was. Another yanked out a slimmer volume of verse and Warlock had to explain what a “menu” was. A third dropped a pocket knife in his hand, and he gasped.

“Thought you’d like it!” Eric grinned. “It could use a sharpen, but it’s a great deal better than that chunk of metal in your pocket.”

“It’s mine.”

“Yeah, all yours. No demonic strings attached.” Eric wiggled in place – the nervous type, not the copies type. “Weeell, probably a little chore or something. You can’t really get anything for _nothing_ down here. It’s a Hell thing. But –”

“No, I mean it’s _mine_. From Earth.” Warlock flipped the blade over, tracing the wooden ducks carved into the handle. The chip near the head of one that looked like a little devil’s horn. “My dad got it for me, for my eighth birthday. Wanted me to skin fish and rabbits or whatever with it. I never used it, but I always kept it in my sock drawer.” Just under the black and gray knit dress socks that scratched him raw during Christmas mass every year.

“Must have gotten Lost at some point and ended up here. Good find.” Eric high-fived themselves.

Warlock frowned. “But it’s always there...” Truth be told, he was scared of it. A four inch blade almost as long as his hand. He didn’t like having it, but he was more terrified of someone else finding it. It was a bit silly given his father kept rifles on the walls, but the knife was _his_. His responsibility.

Someone had found it—moved it—Lost it while he was away. How long had Warlock been gone, exactly? It didn’t seem like more than a few hours since he was in the cell with the Hellhounds, but searching among the Lost Things was more disorienting than hugging his knees and crying in the damp prison. Had it been days? Months? He dropped to the mattress, tugging at the ends of his hair like the little pinpricks of pain might make his memory function better.

The Erics started shifting back into one, each disappearing with a pop. When the one was left, they crouched next to Warlock, running a hand through his hair till his fingers let go.

“Hey, don’t think too hard. You think too hard and Hell’s going to eat you alive. Focus on the moment and the next step, and everything works out fine. Anything else’s gonna tear you up from the inside out.”

“Yeah…” The ducks left a red, angry imprint on Warlock’s palm. He wanted to cry, but that wouldn’t fix anything or get him out any faster.

Still, he wanted to cry.

“I’ve got to go,” Eric said, patting his head gently. “Daily denouncements and all that. Can’t fall behind on quota. You should do that shut down thing humans do, the turn-it-off-and-on-again-thing. You’ll feel better afterward.”

Warlock could hear the door shimmer back into existence as Eric left. He’d be good about paying attention to that in future. Finding a switch or staring at it till the outline seared into his memory and he could see it always. But for now he was exhausted, and the only pull stronger than tears was the avoidance of them through sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: None! A happy/soft chapter, relatively speaking~
> 
> Lore Notes: Level 6 isn't really based on anything specific, just kind of a mashup all of the "lost things"/liminal space lore already out there. But it was a fun room to craft~


	5. Hates the Gardner / Insults Wrath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has some plant knowledge, but I have none knowledge about plants. So if any horticulturalists are reading this and I mucked my landscaping up, lemme know! I hate disappointing Crowley :P
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy this chapter! It got much longer than intended, but it was one of my favorites to write, so I just couldn't stop layering it on...
> 
> As usual, content warnings in the end notes!

**CHAPTER 4**

**Crowley Hates the New Gardener**

The garden was a mess, in Crowley’s less than professional opinion. All the blood red begonias had been dug out and replaced with some dull dewy _lady’s mantle_. Which might be better suited to the English weather, but they were ugly and cantankerous. Sure, your average, bottom-shelf gardener might argue that begonias were a tropical plant made for the south, but Crowley had found they fell in line just fine with some arsenic buried nearby. A reminder to stay beautiful or else.

(He did have to credit the new gardener for their hedge trimming. Crowley had never had the patience for bonsai, much less bushes, and Aziraphale never bothered besides the occasional miracle when Harriet complained.)

It was also noticeably empty. He’d pulled all the way up the drive to get a better look around, but it was silent. There was no little boy by the lake catching frogs, or up a tree carving a mark for how high he could climb, or curled up in the grass napping in the sun.

“Most children grow out of that,” Aziraphale said softly beside him. “They stay indoors more and more as they grow up.” He didn’t say, “Only his nanny took him outside. Let him run his energy out while she squabbled with the gardener.”

There were no guards outside the front doors (the ambassador wasn’t detested enough for a state of concern) but they dotted the inside strategically. Mostly they were milling about, too disinterested to notice much. It’s unlikely they would have noticed Crowley and Aziraphale, even if they weren’t glamoured.

“Odd.” Aziraphale said it first, but they’d noticed at the same time. Crowley had simply forgotten to breathe or speak.

The estate was wrong. Not the hallways or rooms—which were all in the same place – or even the decor – which had shifted in the usual, insignificant ways. (The maids had changed their preferred hand soap from “sweet lemon spring” to “sea salt and coconut” and the dining room chairs were now a high-backed mahogany to match the sitting room Harriet had redecorated in 2014.)

Harriet and Thaddeus smiled down on them from a set of three family photographs in the front hallway. That was the same. Sort of.

Harriet and Thaddeus were alone in the first two family photos. The center photo had always been their first family photo. Warlock as an infant, wrapped in an oversized Christmas sweater and staring oddly off into space. Now that photo was the last in the series, replacing the photo of five year old Warlock, bracketed by his parents and forcing the best smile they could squeeze out of him. (Crowley vividly remembered that two hour photoshoot nightmare.)

“They were supposed to take another picture when he turned ten.” Every five years. Thaddeus had wanted to do one every year, but even Harriet hated them enough to talk him down. Crowley scowled at the spot that five-year-old Warlock had been. Where ten-year-old Warlock should be.

“Strange,” Aziraphale said, equally puzzled, head cocked as he examined the photo. “This is wrong, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, s’posed to be in the middle.”

“No, I mean the eye line.” Aziraphale ghosted a finger over the portrait, following the baby’s gaze. “He’s looking at Harriet’s shoulder. Well, sort of at least. But wasn’t he looking up before?”

“Oh.” Yeah, he had been. Staring up like he was looking to the stars and the infinite cosmos. At least that’s what Crowley had always indulged in believing. And his eyes were blue.

As a baby, Warlock’s eyes had been rather dark, and they had lightened up when he was still a small child. An odd phenomenon Crowley had always attributed to him being the Antichrist. Like an instinctual glamour. The baby trying to blend in and match his human parents.

But the sweater was the wrong shade of red. Harriet’s shirt had a pale plaid pattern instead of herringbone. Thaddeus’ tie was maroon instead of wine red.

“Angel --” his tongue caught in his throat. Eyes wrong. Cheeks wrong. Hair wrong. Wrong. Wrong. WRONG.

“It’s not Warlock,” Aziraphale confirmed, voice tight and reedy.

“Oh Satan, you don’t think -- they didn’t throw him out did they? No, they wouldn’t.” Crowley could be quite fast when he told his legs to cooperate. In a few strides he’d paced the living room, glancing desperately through family photos. He yanked out random drawers and swung cabinet doors open, looking for Warlock’s favorite hidey holes.

The closet of toys and board games was still full of stuffed animals and the large Lego blocks Warlock had loved when he still drooled on everything. But the Nerf guns, dinosaurs, boats, and the stuffed whale they’d won on Coney Island were nowhere to be seen.

“Thaddeus maybe, but Harriet would never—” Crowley muttered, ripping through the house like a madman.

“Dear.” Aziraphale took him by the elbow, and Crowley thrummed with anxious energy under his grip, but he followed the angel’s lead. It calmed him to know Aziraphale was also trembling with hidden anxiety. “Let’s get straight to the source.”

Warlock’s room must have moved. This room—this _travesty_ was painted in a bright, bold blue better reserved for a marching band. More blocks and picture books and large figurines of cowboys and military men littered the floor. The shelves were sticky with goop from a “Baby’s First Chemistry Set” that had been smeared across the set of decorative baseballs and footballs on display. The bedspread was such an obnoxious shade of green, blue, and gold it took Crowley a moment to pick out the Notre Dame logo.

Most importantly, Warlock’s room must have moved because the young boy curled up in what had once been Warlock’s bed was a toddler, no older than three or four.

“Shit.” Crowley shoved his glasses up and pressed the heel of his hand against his eyes until the burn was stronger than the searing lump in his throat. “Shit, shit, shit, _shit_. Where fuck is he?”

“Dearest—”

“Teddy, wake up!” Harriet Dowling called, rounding the corner with a tray of sandwich, chips, and crackers. “It’s snack time!”

Crowley snapped before Aziraphale could stop him, and Harriet froze in the hallway as a tall, thin woman in tight red curls, a sharp black dress, and beady dark glasses appeared. The soft Scottish accent landed warm and familiar on Crowley’s tongue as he tried not to hiss. “Where _isss_ Warlock?”

“Excuse me?” Harriet’s gaze darted to the bedroom and back. Her knuckles bleached white against her grip on the tray. “I don’t know how you got in here, but you need to leave before—”

“Don’t threaten me, Harriet Dowling,” Crowley snapped. “Did you throw Warlock out? I can’t believe—Thaddeus, fine, he’s enough of an ass and you were never much for motherhood, but to sink that low—”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Her face pinched. That look of someone a split second before a migraine sets in.

“Warlock! Your ssson! Your first born, not this—this—sodding replacement!” How long had it been? Could have happened any time in the last three years. “Did you wait till you had a new one before you threw him out?”

Harriet dropped the tray and the sandwich smeared across the floor. Tears welled in her eyes as she bent double with pain, hands pressed hard against her head.

Crowley still looked like Ashtoreth, but his demonic presence filled the hallway with his rage.

“DO YOU FEEL BADLY NOW, _HATTIE?_ ” he spit. “I’LL MAKE YOU FEEL LESS THAN WORTHLESS BEFORE YOU WEASLE YOUR WAY OUT OF THIS. I’LL BURN THADDEUS TILL EVEN HELL DOESN’T WANT HIS SOUL. DID YOU CELEBRATE WHEN YOU TOSSED HIM OUT? CHEERED THAT YOU COULD TRY AGAIN AND MAKE A PROPER CLONE OUT OF YOUR SON?”

“Who are you? What are you talking about?” Harriet wailed. “I can’t… I can’t think…”

“Crowley, _stop_ ,” Aziraphale said, and the demonic fury disappeared an instant before Harriet collapsed in the angel’s arms.

Ashtoreth melted away and Crowley shook as his form resettled. Then he was off again, pacing his restless energy up and down the hallway, biting and snapping.

Aziraphale placed a hand over Harriet’s forehead. A blessing and an examination.

“You’re protecting her?” Crowley spit, bending the priceless candelabra at the end of the hall. “ _Blessing_ her? After all this?” He shoved every painting on the wall till they hung at odd angles and felt himself marginally better for the effort.

“Something’s wrong,” Aziraphale frowned. He brushed Harriet’s bangs off her forehead and gently shook her head side-to-side like a Magic 8-Ball. “I don’t think she’s lying, Crowley. She didn’t recognize you, and I’m finding no memories of Warlock in her mind.”

Crowley froze. “What?”

“Well, ‘none’ is too strong, but they’re... murky. Like an echo. And they’re fading again.”

“What in Hell does that mean?”

Aziraphale frowned as he gathered Harriet up in his arms.

“I don’t know.”

* * *

**Warlock Insults Wrath**

Without the sun or a cellphone, it was impossible to track time, so Warlock learned to mark its passage in his possessions. With careful ventures into the piles of rubbish and extra landmarks around the room, he’d managed to do some decent dumpster dives. And only twice had he been swept far away without noticing. He’d found a second trainer to go with his single left shoe. It had kept the soles of his feet warm, but was nearly as ratty as the trainer he was wearing when he entered Hell. Both had been replaced as soon as Warlock found a more sturdy pair of boots to tromp around in. The right boot was two sizes too big, but with some extra padding it didn’t slip around too badly and Warlock considered himself lucky neither shoe had holes in them yet.

In addition, he’d stashed away a frayed military jacket that hung off his shoulders at an odd angle, a few stained shirts he changed into whenever he wanted to start a “new” day, and a few water-logged books he was almost desperate enough to read. Not that he hated reading, but well… He hadn’t wanted to read _Moby Dick_ even in the middle of his nautical phase in primary. _The Complete McGonagall_ didn’t have anything to do with _Harry Potter_ , it turned out. _Dildo Cay_ was a lot less salacious than the title had suggested. And the frankly uncomfortable number of copies of _Fifty Shades of Grey_ had started weirding him out.

Those at least were fun to throw when he was really bored.

Warlock was in the middle of trying to skip a first edition off the laundry machine three piles down when he felt the tingle of magic behind him. Oh, there was a smell to it as well. Something acrid and sharp.

He kicked his pile of books over and lept to the front of the stacks as the door materialized by his trash can lid.

The door swung open, and Hastur’s beady black eyes swept the room before stepping over the threshold. He was a tall man, and in three quick strides, he was beside Warlock, grabbing him by the shoulder of his jacket and shoving him toward the door.

“You’ve been summoned by the Dark Council.”

“Shove off you big brute! I can walk just fine!” Warlock clawed at Hastur’s hand, but he readjusted his grip to the back of Warlock’s coat and pushed harder flinging him forward the whole way. He decided then and there he much preferred to scamper behind Hastur. “What’s a dark council?”

“Shut up and make your legs move properly.” Warlock did as he was told, wincing every few steps as Hastur kicked the back of his heels and then shoved him for the inconvenience.

They marched through the familiar basement cubicles, demons stepping out of Hastur’s way as much as they could in the close quarters, and when they couldn’t Warlock was shoved into a scaly arm or a sweaty chest and used as a fleshy battering ram. When they reached the endless stairs to the basement, he was glad for the respite, even if Hastur’s grip on his neck made him miss every fifth step.

There was a doorway at the bottom of the stairs. It was the most ornate thing Warlock had seen in Hell. A large dark metal door at least twenty feet tall towered over them. It was lined in thick gold edging with thin, swirling gold designs raised on the surface. Symbols that Warlock couldn’t read and suspected weren’t used on Earth. More gold dripped down the door thick and beautiful and laced with thinner stripes of horizontal gold. It took Warlock a moment to realize they looked rather like prison bars.

As they stepped toward it, the door rotated automatically, spinning in the center. Hastur shoved them forward, and Warlock stumbled into the smoky, dark atrium. After the cramped halls of the office floor, this room was terrifyingly large. The walls were sheer and the room empty, save for a long conference table. No place to hide from the six demons staring down at them. Warlock pressed back into Hastur on instinct.

Seven chairs lined the table. Six on each side and an empty seventh at the head of the table. Beelzebub sat to the right of the empty chair.

At his father’s parties, that would make Beelzebub the Mr. Saxley to the missing leader. The lawyer and the man who could destroy any problems before they began. The woman across from zir would be Mr. Booker. Personal assistant and secretly the most powerful person in the room, considering the kind of access he had to Mr. Dowling’s contacts, emails, and personal records. Also the man who always had candy-flavored cough drops in his pockets, though Warlock suspected this woman didn’t do the same.

Hastur marched them up to the ornate, empty chair. The backing was weird—“A custom design,” his mother would have corrected. It was an upside down triangle with a looping V at the bottom.

“Lord Beelzebub.” Hastur bowed, slamming Warlock forward without warning. He only just missed smashing his nose against the polished table top. “The human, as you requested.”

“This is the one Crowley—” the-woman-who-wasn’t-Mr.-Booker hissed, “—the _traitor_ watched over? The one he said was the Antichrist?”

Hastur pulled Warlock’s head up just in time to catch the speaker. He sat next to not-Mr.-Booker. He tugged at his goatee as he assessed Warlock, and his horns were so small he might have been mistaken for human, but where his eyes ought to be, Hellfire danced in the sockets.

“While he hid away the real child? Yeszz,” Beelzebub grumbled, curling one leg up in zirs chair and sprawling. As ze slouched, the top of zirs chair appeared. Two long iron rods with tiny crosses on the tips. Weird.

“And you didn’t notice until Doomsday, Beez? Sloppy.”

“The boy waszz meant to be fully human, Aszzmoedeuszz! There waszz no way to tell until he came into hiszz power!”

“Or didn’t, as it so happened.”

“So what do we do with the human?” interrupted the damp, scaley woman behind Beelzebub. Well-timed, as Beelzebub looked determined to find something in the empty room to throw, and Warlock was closest.

“Kill him,” said the withered old man in the corner.

He was scrawny by any measure, with huge, bugged out eyes, bones like sticks, and skin that seemed paper mache’d to his body. But sitting next to the much younger and more beautiful Asmodeus, he seemed one bad hiccup away from death. So when Beelzebub screamed, “SZZHORT-SZZIGHTED!!” and the old man only glowered, Warlock somehow found himself more unnerved.

“Then _what do you have in mind?_ ” the damp woman hissed.

Beelzebub glowered, but said nothing.

Not-Mr.-Booker had never taken her eyes off Warlock, and now she waved him over with one gnarled, scorched arm. He froze in his place.

“ _Go._ ”

Hastur shoved him, and Warlock tripped around the empty throne. The woman caught his chin in her grasp and stared at him. Through him. Her hair was so dark and thick with curls it nearly consumed the stray glimmer of a broken crown encircling her head. Like a broken halo.

“Ugh, you _reek_ of him,” she said, twisting his face back and forth before settling her gaze on his. Her dark eyes on his. They were normal. More human than any other eyes at the table. But there was a hatred so deep Warlock shivered and pulled to look anywhere else.

“I am Astaroth. Prince of accusers and inquisitors. Demon of the first order.”

Asmodeus’s eyes crackled and sparked. The damp woman dripped water on the floor. Flies buzzed in circles about Beelzebub’s head. But no one spoke up. Warlock was being addressed. Warlock was meant to reply.

“L-lord Ashtoreth—”

Her fingers sliced through his cheeks like razors, catching on his teeth and slicing down to the gums.

Warlock screamed.

“ _As._ ”

His skin fell in ribbons as his jaw stretched wider, screaming so it might drown out the pain.

“ _Tah._ ”

He grabbed her wrist and her skin ripped like tissue paper. Her flesh slid in globby chunks like cottage cheese.

“ _Wroth._ ”

“ _ASTAROTH! ASTAROTH!_ **_LORD ASTAROTH!!!_ **”

Tears cascaded down his cheeks and he sobbed too loud to hear her hushed, “Shh, little one. Shh, shush. No more tears.” Her fingers went warm, warm, too warm as she pulled away. Warlock keened as his flesh ran hot, burning and scorching as she traced her fingertips across the swollen flesh, cauterizing the wounds. Leaving thick, red welts across his face and mouth.

“Shhh,” she said again, finger dancing against his lips. He hiccuped and shook, but kept his mouth shut tight. “Save your tears for when they matter, dear boy.”

When she leaned in this close, he could see the five-pointed star woven into the back of her chair. She took his trembling as a nod of agreement and tapped his mouth once more.

“His desire for Wrath is a bit low for my liking, but nothing I can’t work with.”

“He’s not yourszz to do with as you like,” Beelzebub growled. “I brought the human to the council under orderszz, but the traitor iszz still my busineszz!”

“You have already failed to deal with him once. It is rather a,” Astaroth flashed a smile with entirely too many teeth, “ _miracle_ you aren’t in Belphegor’s seat right now, dear sibling.”

“Mrm,” called the slouched woman in the last chair. Her feet were on the table, crossed at the ankles, and her fingers laced together over her stomach. Despite her throne looking terribly uncomfortable, she seemed to doze in it just fine. Well, until now. “Wassit?”

“Go back to szzleep, Belphegor. We’re deciding what to do about the traitor.” Beelzebub grumbled.

“Oh, issat up for a vote is it?” she slurred, shifting in her chair to scratch her back against the iron twisted in the shape of a trident. “Nay from here. I think he oughta getta… be ah… commendated, yea? Issa good job he did, Crawly. With the motorway… thing...”

“SZZHUT UP, BELPHEGOR.”

The six demons were still arguing what to do when Hastur and Warlock were finally dismissed. Or, at least when Beelzebub lost zirs temper at the old man (Mammon, Warlock had learned) and screamed at Hastur instead.

“GET BACK TO WORK YOU LAZY SHITSZZ.”

“And the boy?”

“KEEP IT BUSZZY.”

Hastur bowed and Warlock put up a token resistance until he saw Astaroth’s head turn in their direction. He bent in half and kept his head down for the whole march to the chamber doors.

He had a slurry of questions darting through his head, but it wasn’t good to ask them. Asking questions made you look stupid and irritated the adults around you. Besides, he was a little terrified that opening his mouth would reopen the welts across his cheeks. He couldn’t feel his face right now, he just knew instinctively it was in pain. In a sort of distant way.

Warlock’s first impression of maintenance was that they shuffled about like zombies, walking in circles around the water dripping off the ceiling. (He hoped it was water, anyway.) One woman was standing under a leak, mouth slack as it splashed off the maggots raving in her hair. A fat little goat-man came waddling around the cubicles, and somehow that was the weirdest thing he had seen in Hell so far.

“Why’ve you got a human down here, Hastur?” he growled, arms crossed over his chest and cigar sticking out the side of his mouth. Was it rude to stare at his little hoofed feet? “We don’t maintenance organics, and we’ve already tried human skin as floor cleaner. Not worth the mess, remember?”

“Beelzebub said to keep it busy. Idle hands. You’re so backlogged, I thought you could do with the help.” Hastur bared his teeth, all mottled and rotten and black around the seams. “See if you can finally fix the pipes around my desk.”

“We get to your ticket when we damn well want to, and that’s never, and that’s how we like it. Got a problem, take it up with the head hancho, lizard-man.”

“ _Amphibian_.”

“ _Maggot_.”

“You disgusting little flea farm.” Hastur shoved Warlock at the goat-man and Warlock had to side-step to avoid tripping right over his new boss. “Just keep it busy. I’ve got a quota to fill and it’s better as your dead weight than mine. The kid’ll fit right in with your lot.”

Then Hastur reached up to a string that wasn’t there a moment ago. With a tug, the ceiling swung down and steps unfolded like a ladder to an attic. No one looked dignified going up a ladder, but Hastur’s legs bowed out and he folded down to half his usual height as he scampered up into the darkness. Warlock almost laughed.

“Alright, focus up.” He glanced back at the goat-man who was eyeing him up and down. “Okay kid, you good at anything?”

Warlock shrugged.

The goat-man pulled a bucket from one of the frozen demons and a putty knife off a desk and shoved both at Warlock. “Name’s Merihem, but just call me ‘Merry’ cuz I ain’t. And don’t forget that.”

“Mmm—”

“Don’t interrupt me.”

Good, cuz his mouth wasn’t ready to talk yet.

“There’s some mashed up strawberries in the supply closet. Fill your bucket, then go find some spots around the office where no one will notice and smear some around. They’ll mold in a couple days and everyone’ll remember why our department’s important. Got it?”

“Mm—”

“Don’t interrupt me kid.” He ripped a neon green vest off another demon and tugged it around Warlock. The velcro in the front had hair stuck in it. Warlock let Merry slap his chest as much as he needed to get the velcro to stick so Warlock wouldn’t have to try doing it himself.

“There, now no one will bother you. Alright, get moving! You’re burning fluorescents.”

The supply cabinet was weirdly well organized, but when Warlock went to touch any of the plastic bins (legibly marked with tape and large lettering saying, “BANANA,” “AVOCADO,” “BLEACH,” “STRAWBERRY,” etc.) they were all sticky. In different places and textures, but all were gross. The room smelled like some cross of rancid food and strong cleaners.

Smearing the strawberries around was a lot more difficult, since Warlock wasn’t sure what would “go unnoticed.” The way most demons shuffled about, he could probably coat all of Hell and the only one who’d realize was the spiky man licking the posters by the water cooler.

Warlock stuck to smearing the fruit guts in the corners of every room.

The vest did wonders, and for the first time since arriving in Hell, no one was staring at the little human boy running around their feet. He went so unnoticed, he worried for a moment he’d gone entirely invisible. But his reflection still stared back at him in the smudgy metal of the break room coffee pot. It made snooping much easier, though. Well, it would have done if he could find anything more remarkable than endless office space.

None of the doors would open when he tried the handle. He only managed to sneak into a break room by following another demon, and then he had to follow them out again to leave. Eventually he found a bank of elevators and traveled to the third floor. There he’d at least found the cafeteria.

The entire floor was a giant food court. Several demons were behind the counters serving food, but none were so eye-catching as the two-legged elephant towering over the soda fountain. A scratchy intercom clicked on for a minute, buzzing in a weird roller coaster of static with no words attached. Trays were dripping with soggy liquids like gravy and eyeballs that were soft enough to lose their shape. Demons piled in here like sardines, smelling as awful as the boy’s locker room after an afternoon run.

A bush of familiar, spiky hair caught Warlock’s eye and he ran to the table full of Erics.

“Hey! Hey, Eric!” he called, remembering too late that he ought to be gentle with his mouth.

Nothing tore, so he kept on yelling. Didn’t do much good, though, as none of the Erics would look up. He tried shaking, waving, jumping around, and eventually pinching one of their cheeks before they reacted.

“Oh Hell! Sorry, didn’t see you with the um… Why are you dressed as maintenance?”

“Hastur left me with them,” Warlock replied, setting down his bucket and sitting in one of the spots that used to be an Eric. “Actually, when he left he said he had to fill a ‘quota’ and then he pulled, like, an attic door out of the ceiling and disappeared. What’s that about?”

“We… can’t be helping you out all the time. That’s not really how it works down here,” Eric said, half of them glancing about the cafeteria at the other demons.

“They can’t see me.”

“They’re not the ones keeping score,” Eric replied, and three of them glanced down.

“Oh,” Warlock replied, glancing down as well, “You mean Sat—”

One of their hands covered his mouth.

“Please don’t say his name. We don’t want his attention, and you don’t either.” Warlock nodded in understanding and Eric dropped their hand.

“Fine, you don’t get something for nothing in Hell. But all I’ve got is nothing!” He kicked his bucket. “I doubt you want rotten strawberries.”

“Not really,” they replied, looking like they wanted to want rotten strawberries rather badly.

“Well how about Earth knowledge for Hell knowledge? I know lots about humans.”

The Erics all brightened at that, and the one on Warlock’s left pulled out a cell phone. “Do you know much about cell phones? We’ve only figured out texting, the camera app, and YouTube so far. We’ve heard terrible things about Twitter, so that’s next on our list, but what else can this do?”

“Oh that I can do! Don’t even bother with Twitter, let me get you hooked up on Reddit. You’ll love that.”

All of the dozen or so Erics crowded around Warlock as he typed, and within a few minutes of work, they had an account for Twitter, Reddit, and 4chan, with some recommended hashtags and boards to follow.

“Good deal?”

“Excellent deal,” they grinned. The pack of Erics kept scrolling through the tabs as the Eric-to-the-left-of-Warlock turned their attention on him. “Okay, you wanted to know about quotas?”

“And the attic door-thing.”

“Quotas are just the amount of human souls a demon has to secure for our Lord and Master to keep their standing. So Hastur pulled a door to go topside so he could forment evil or whatever. He’s been up there a lot lately, trying to gain his favor back we think.”

“So that’s the door back to Earth? That’s how I get home! How do I use it?”

Eric set a hand over Warlock’s just as he noticed all the other Erics look up from their phone to stare at him sadly. “It’s like the door in your room. Only a demon can summon it. You can’t use it.”

“But you’re a demon! You could use it and help me get out. Is it only back in maintenance or can you summon it anywhere?” No more funky Hell smells. No more terrible Hell food. No more burning or cutting or – grass. He was just looking forward to smelling grass again. Fresh cut, clean, with maybe a light London smog. Home. _Home._

“It can be summoned anywhere, but -”

“Seriously? Why didn’t you tell me this down with the Hellhounds? Or in my room? Whatever, I don’t care, you can take me home.”

“Warlock -”

“Does it cost something? I could get you a new iPhone. Or have you tried VR? You’d love VR and it would totally cover a trip home.”

“WARLOCK,” they said in unison. Each voice was individually gentle, but all of them together froze Warlock in his spot. “You can’t ask us to do that.”

He wasn’t going home.

“Why not?”

“This is Hell. We’d get a bath in holy water if we were _lucky_. The council is furious with Cro—the traitor getting away. We doubt they’d offer a quick destruction to anyone that helped to foil his punishment.”

There was a knife in his throat, and Warlock couldn’t breathe. Tears speckled his cheeks. “Why am I part of this guy’s punishment?”

“Because he cared for you.”

Warlock does not cry. Dowling boys do not cry, and so Warlock did not cry. But when Warlock could breathe again, he shook with gasps and scrubbed at his face, trying not to think about the strawberry smeared on his cheeks.

“You okay kid?” Eric the Worst asked.

“No. Don’t talk to me, I hate you.”

An Eric across the table slid him a handkerchief.

“I don’t want your shit handkerchief,” he said, even as he blew his nose thick and sticky into it. “Serves you right.”

The Erics said nothing and went back to their food and their cell phone as Warlock glared a hole into the cafeteria table.

He hated them. Eric. Demons. Hell. All of it.

His dad had warned him once, when he was in a particularly vicious phase and ducking his guards on every outing, that he had to be careful. That his father worked in politics and politics made enemies, and enemies may try to use the people he loved against him. Not that Thaddeus Dowling _loved_ him, but he was _meant_ to love him, and that would be enough for a group of “bad people.”

(Terrorists. Kidnappers. Murders. Nanny had taught him the words for “bad people.”)

Warlock just wished he knew the man he was being used as leverage against. But he didn’t, so he’d have to hate Eric instead.

The speakers sparked up, growling out static for a minute before disappearing again.

“Why do they sound like that?” Eric glanced at him with unease. Warlock was sure his fury was clear on his face. He sighed, trying to stuff the anger down. Push a neutral look on his face. “The speakers,” he grumbled, “Are they broken?”

Eric-to-the-right-of-Warlock held out their phone like a peace offering.

“Seriously? That’s barely a question!”

Eric wilted.

Warlock sighed.

“Download Flappy Bird.”

“Verdelet’s in charge of the announcements for Hell,” they replied, and it’s the quietest they’ve been since Warlock met them. “Updates every fifteen minutes. Only he’s gotten into ASMR recently, and now no one can make out what he’s saying. But no one really listened in the first place, so not much has changed.”

“Gotcha.” He hated this place. “What’s it gonna cost me to get you to walk me to maintenance? I don’t know how to get back and the elevator won’t let me push buttons anyway.”

“Well if we just happen to be heading that way by chance, we should be able to help you out free of charge.” Their smile was small and apologetic. Not sorry enough, but it was something.

Warlock ran his fingers over the knife in his pocket, and it was the first time ever he’s had an urge to use it. Stab a mattress a few times. Or maybe something with more resistance, like a dresser or desk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Body/mouth horror, cauterizing wounds, and putrid/rotting food.
> 
> Trips and watches Hell Lore spill out of my pockets all over the floor.
> 
> I had WAY too much fun with the Dark Council, and then couldn't fit most of the info into the chapter. Most notably, my artist brain wanted to squeeze in an Easter egg that my writer brain struggled to fit regarding the 7 thrones. Each throne has a unique back, designed based on that demon's sigil. (Images linked below.)
> 
> As for the Dark Council, each lord is a master of one of the 7 Deadly Sins, ranked as [Lucifer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_Satanism) (pride), [Beelzebub](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/joyofsatan/images/e/e7/Beelzebub_sigil.gif/revision/latest?cb=20150419222503) (gluttony), [Astaroth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astaroth) (wrath), [Leviathan](https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.783279813.8655/flat,750x,075,f-pad,750x1000,f8f8f8.jpg) (envy), [Asmodeus](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/joyofsatan/images/6/6b/Asmodeus_sigil.gif/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/340?cb=20150419222500) (lust), [Mammon](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81QqY5eAYgL._AC_SL1000_.jpg) (greed), and [Belphegor](https://imgur.com/fDArSuA) (sloth). I won't say more, since some of these characters will be coming back, but I might have to throw an epilogue chapter up at the end of this fic for all my Dark Council headcanons...
> 
> (Also [I imagine Belphegor looks like Catherine Tate that time she wore a suit in Much Ado About Nothing.](https://gingerteaonthetardis.tumblr.com/post/186014793991/catherine-tate-me-an-adult-and-also-already) Because this is my fic and I'm allowed to be self-indulgent. But imagine her however you like~)
> 
> Bonus Lore: Verdelet is the master of ceremonies in the infernal court, which translates in this fic to, "guy in charge of the PA and also all the company email blasts that go straight to your junk folder."


	6. Hassles the Antichrist / Swallows Sins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, sorry for the delay on this chapter. The holidays messed up my schedule a bit!
> 
> This is my last pre-written chapter, so unfortunately updates from here on out will be wily at best, and painfully subject to the whims of my day-to-day schedule. But thank you so much to everyone who's been reading and continuing to read so far! I hope you enjoy!
> 
> There will be full content warning notes at the end of this fic, but I did want to highlight one in the top notes because it feels out of place with the CWs so far, and I wanted to be abundantly cautious since it is a very serious issue that I am trying very hard to not take lightly. This chapter has a brief scene of ambiguous child neglect/endangerment and domestic abuse. If you want more context, check the end notes for a full breakdown of the scene and how to skip it if you don't want to read it.
> 
> Thank you so much for the support and comments so far, they've meant a lot to me! And buckle in because there's a few more terrible bumps on the road, but I can safely say the angsty comfort is around the corner!
> 
> Please enjoy!

**CHAPTER 5**

**Crowley Hassles the Antichrist**

As much as Crowley wanted to look the part of an action hero, he'd never gotten into smoking. When one smells with their tongue, the scent of cigarettes suddenly becomes unbearable. But he’d learned to compensate with his clothes, his car, and his sprawl. So when he posted up outside a little cottage in Tadfield, he was the picture of everything wrong with London nightlife invading their quaint country village.

By the time Adam arrived at home to greet his guest, he’d been informed by most of the local watch that “a suspicious character was waiting for him,” and that any number of concerned adults would walk with him if he’d like. (Adam was the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, etc. etc. and would be safe if Satan himself had come to pay him a visit, so he just politely told them he would be fine, and continued on his way.)

Dog padded up to sniff Crowley’s shoe, and for his part, Crowley barely flinched at the Hellhound. He was one of the few that could see the great lumbering beast with red eyes and drooling fangs shoved inside the appearance of the tiny pup, but he just nudged Dog away so the mutt wouldn’t drool on his shoes.

“Hullo,” Adam said.

“Antichrist.”

“D’you have a problem with my name?” Everything said by a teenager ought to sound belligerent, but Adam was, at heart, an inquisitive person, and sincere curiosity always oozed out of him. Crowley ought to like that about him.

“No, er, ‘s a Hell thing, I suppose. Names and all.”

Adam glanced at Dog chewing on grass by the garden gate and sniffing the pee stains on the post.

“Fair enough. So do you need me for Antichrist things, then?”

“Sort of.” Crowley had the habit of shoving his hands into his too tiny pockets to stop from fidgeting, which meant his entire body fidgeted instead. “Er—well, the apocalypse—the not-apocalypse, I mean—that is—”

“Do you want to come in for tea?” Adam asked. “Mum should be brewing a pot.”

“No.”

“Okay.”

“We shouldn’t talk around humans.”

“Alright.”

“We could go for a drive.” Crowley’s fingers drummed against the car, fast and agitated.

“Don’t think you should be driving,” Adam said. “Follow me. I haven’t had an excuse to hold court in a while. Should be fun.”

‘Holding court’ was one of Lucifer’s favorite hobbies right after The Fall, and Crowley tried not to shudder at the implication. Adam didn't take after those aspects of his biological father. He couldn't even know the heritage of that phrase.

Still gave Crowley a chill though.

The Them didn’t use the forest or tree fort as much these days. Grownup kids so often find themselves spending less and less time outdoors. Wensleydale in particular had found an accounting sim game a couple months ago and disappeared completely into his new hobby. But being the Antichrist meant the fort stayed in tip-top shape, held in stasis when the teenagers weren’t around.

Adam jumped up to the little platform he’d built his “throne” on, and leaned back in the lawn chair. “Alright, no humans around. Just you, me, and Dog.” The Hellhound sniffed about the autumn leaves, barking once to acknowledge his name, then chasing the smell of a squirrel up a tree. “What’s wrong?”

Crowley paced a circle around the fort, and it took Adam a moment to realize the demon was tugging on the fabric of the universe. Looking for prying eyes or latent wards.

“Is it to do with Heaven and Hell? Is the apocalypse back on?”

“No, no, not that.”

Dog darted into the woods as his squirrel prey scampered, and when he’d lost the critter, he trotted back to his master for a few soft pets and a scritch behind the ear. It was about then that the demon wrapped up his pacing.

“You reset Doomsday Week. Put everything back the way it was, like nothing happened.”

Crowley stared off into the woods, and it took a moment before Adam realized he was waiting for a reply. Adam nodded.

“You’d never been to Aziraphale’s bookshop before, didn’t even know it had burned down, but you put it back together just as before. All the first editions and everything.”

“I guess.”

“Not a page out of place. The Bentley too.”

“I only ever saw it on fire,” Adam said.

“But you still put it to rights.” Adam shrugged. “You did. The American hit me with her bicycle and I had to miracle the dents out. But you put her back to the way she was before the collision. Still had the scrapes I had to fix in the 80s, but no dents from Book Girl.”

“Do you avoid all names or just human ones?”

“Told you, it’s a Hell thing. You ought to be more careful, honestly. All the naming everything, left and right.”

“You call Aziraphale by his name. Is it because he’s an angel?”

“The point is _the bookshop_ ,” Crowley hissed.

Adam sniggered the way all kids do when they’ve managed to embarrass an adult. “Yeah, what about _the bookshop?_ ”

“The kraken, the storms, Atlantis, the aliens - I get all that. You summoned them and you sent them away. Easy as nothing. But the bookshop wasn’t part of the apocalypse. I mean it _was_ but it wasn’t _you_. Do you understand?” Adam nodded. “But you fixed it anyway.”

“I told you, I reset everything. Like that week never happened.”

“You didn’t, though!” Crowley paced through the early fall leaves. They cracked and crunched under his quick, short footfalls. “That isn’t what you did because the books _weren’t the same_ . The first editions, fine, they were all back. That awful wall of Wildes. All of Bill’s loose folios. The sodding _Bibles_ which I think spiritually should have re-burned when the Antichrist magicked them, but the universe is funny that way.”

“I don’t understand—”

“Richmal Crompton.”

Adam shrugged.

“William and the Masked Ranger. William and the Space Animal. William the Pirate.”

“Are those books? They sound brilliant—”

“Think!” Crowley snapped. “You didn’t just reset the world, you changed it. You added books to Aziraphale’s bookshop. You kept your powers but you changed your own birthright. What did you _say?_ What did you _think_ when you were changing things?”

“I don’t…” Adam frowned, slouching in his throne. “I just… I put it back. I think? Put it right?”

 _“THINK, Adam!”_ Crowley lunged forward, hands on either side of Adam’s throne. “What _exactly_ did you say?”

“I’m not… Just put it back?" Adam considered. "Put it right? I just wanted my dad, my real dad, and I wanted everything the way it was supposed to be—”

“That’s not good enough!” Crowley shouted at Adam. “That’s not everything! Think harder! REMEMBER.” Crowley grabbed Adam’s jacket, pulling the boy to his feet and shaking him. Dog growled at them, the smell of brimstone rolling off him for the first time in three years.

Adam’s gaze settled over Crowley’s shoulder, unfocused. The air whipped up around them and his bangs snapped in the wind.

“Antichrist—”

“Shut up,” Adam said gently, hand resting on Crowley’s arm. He ought to be a bit upset that a teenager was reassuring _him_. A six-thousand year old demon. “I’m trying to remember.”

Adam floated up a few inches such that Crowley had the perfect view when the boy’s eyes turned red and black. When he spoke, a chorus of voices spoke with him. Low and high and loud but all of them calm. Unwaveringly calm.

“I SET EVERYTHING RIGHT. EVERY MEDDLING OF HEAVEN AND HELL WAS ERASED. SOULS UNFAIRLY TAKEN WERE RETURNED. SATAN WAS BANISHED. AND I PUT THE UNIVERSE BACK THE WAY IT WAS MEANT TO BE.”

“But the books! That doesn’t explain the books!”

A smile pulled at Adam’s mouth.

“YOU TWO DESERVED A GIFT FOR PROTECTING MY DOMAIN. PROTECTING EARTH. BUT I THOUGHT THE ANGEL OUGHT TO HAVE A FEW MORE FUN BOOKS IN HIS COLLECTION.”

(The constant voice of Aziraphale in Crowley’s head told him in no uncertain terms that he had _plenty_ of fun books in his collection already.)

“The other boy, though, the one you were switched with! He’s vanished, like he never existed! What did you do?!”

“EVERYONE WHO WAS KILLED WAS RETURNED—”

“HE WASN’T RETURNED, THOUGH!” Crowley tried to shake Adam, but he was frozen in place like the center of the universe. Like everything moved around him and Crowley was just holding on for dear life. “His parents don’t know him, and there’s no proof he existed except in our memories. You must have done something wrong—”

“Crowley,” Adam said gently in one voice, “That’s all I know. He’s not of Earth anymore.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” Adam said with a shrug. “I can’t sense anyone missing or anyone there.”

“He can’t just be gone! Humans don’t just disappear!”

“M’sorry I can’t help more, but that’s all I know” Adam pulled Crowley’s hands off his jacket and smiled sadly. “You shouldn’t drive right now.”

“M’not—”

“You’re turning scaly, Mr. Crowley,” Adam said, smiling too gently. Too knowingly. “I think you should go home.”

And when Crowley blinked he was in the doorway to the bookshop with the Bentley parked outside. At least the Antichrist had been kind enough not to mention his tears.

* * *

**Warlock Swallows Sins**

Warlock didn’t make any progress opening the door to his room. Or any other door in Hell, to be honest. Whenever Hastur came to collect him for his “shifts” in maintenance, Warlock donned his vest and became invisible to the rest of Hell. This inspired an idea in him, and for dozens of shifts, he had been collecting anything he might wear to trick Hell into thinking he was a demon. Talons, toenails, and scales from when he had to grout demon toes. Teeth, hair, and horns from the washrooms.

No effect. Didn’t matter how heavy his pockets were with demon bits, the doors stayed locked.

Clothes were next. He dressed like Hell, wearing ratty jackets and chunky boots he found around his room. Slashed extra holes in his jeans with his pocket knife. Stole a sash off a sleeping dragon. Nicked gloves off of one of his zombie’d out coworkers. Even found a supply of brimstone in the maintenance supply cupboard and started rubbing it into his hair and onto his skin to smell like them.

The only change after that was Hastur stopped complaining about how much he reeked. 

(His skin also broke out in abrasive rashes, and Warlock stuck to only rubbing brimstone in his hair.)

But the door never stayed. Hastur would appear and drag him through it or throw him back in his room and disappear and the door would melt under his fingertips. He would meditate in front of it and visualize it in space for ages until he tricked his mind into seeing it solid and cold and real in front of him. But his hands ghosted through space over and over and over again.

At “work” Merry had him running ragged. Scampering up into the ceiling to leave dead rats between the vents, wedging all sorts of demonic waste in the pipes, mis-wiring the electrics so bulbs blew up—all sorts of little mischiefs. Some were gross. A few involved acid spills that burned his hands red and raw until they were covered in boils and the crying annoyed Merry enough Warlock was “sent home early.”

Mostly he put on his vest and disappeared in Hell’s office space, finding crawl spaces where he could hide between the cobwebs and rat carcasses and go unnoticed for a little while.

His routine was so rote at this point, that when Hastur reached the top of the stairs and turned left, Warlock paid him no attention and went to the right for the maintenance department.

“Idiot human!” Hastur huffed as he yanked Warlock by the scruff of his coat, briefly choking the boy on his own jacket.

“W-where are we going?” Warlocked asked, knowing it was a stupid question. Hastur wasn’t ever the type to explain himself. So Warlock stumbled behind, feet straining for the floor as Hastur dragged him along. If they were going off pattern anyway…

“Can we get some food?”

Hastur stopped in the middle of the hallway and stared down with his wide black eyes. “Food?”

Warlock’s feet were beneath him. “Yeah. _Food._ You haven’t actually fed me in—” months? “Well you’ve never actually fed me. And Beelzebub said you were supposed to.”

“ _Lord_ Beelzebub!” Hastur yanked on Warlock’s scarf till the kid was doing a strange approximation of a bow. From this angle, Warlock could see Hastur’s nasty foot fungus through the holes in his boots. “Don’t forget who your master is you pathetic little _thing_.”

“ _Lord_ Beelzebub gave you an order and you’ve been neglecting it. I’m human, I need to eat.”

When Hastur didn’t respond or smack him for insolence, Warlock dared to glance up. Hastur’s gaze was directed at him, but the frog permanently stuck to his head was looking elsewhere. At another demon walking past with a shelled back and too many limbs for a human. They looked a bit like a beetle.

Like a tongue darting out of a frog’s mouth, Hastur’s spare hand whipped out, snagged the beetle by one of their many arms, and snapped it off in one, gravel-crunching motion.

The beetle swallowed a scream. Dozens of demonic eyes fell on them. On the black dripping tar that dribbled out of their shoulder. They pushed into the crowd of demons, black smearing on clothes as they shoved.

Warlock couldn’t remember hearing them scream or cry out, but he must have heard them. It’s not as if they got very far before the crowd devoured them. But Warlock stared at the wall and heard only the rush of the ocean. The waves crashing down on him. Swallowing him under.

“Food.” Hastur was holding the dripping arm out to him.

Warlock tried to shake his head no. He must have succeeded because Hastur bit into the meat of the shoulder. Black blood dripped down his chin while he watched the show.

When Warlock was cognizant of time again, they were stopping at a desk as unremarkable as all the rest. It should have been seared into Warlock’s memory after the demon burned his foot here, but Hastur’s desk was as disinteresting and unremarkable as the other thousands of desks in Hell. Impersonal, scratched up, wobbly on one leg (though always a different leg from desk to desk), and covered in a messy pile of paperwork and grease stains.

“Sit,” Hastur ordered, throwing him into the metal chair across from him. “Work,” he added, throwing a stack of papers and a chewed up pen at Warlock.

The forms were illegible. Partially because Hastur seemed to have scrawled across them with no concern for the pre-printed sections underneath, and partially because the section for “date” listed enough spaces for eleven numbers, three fruits, and a semicolon. The rest of the form listed much the same, with the only repeating information being the strange shapes in the top left corner that Warlock assumed must be Hastur’s name.

He could ask. (Then he’d be hit for asking stupid questions.)

He could just guess, and risk doing it wrong. (Then he’d be hit for doing it wrong.)

Hastur seemed to be scribbling illegible doodles all over his. Warlock gave up and did the same, sketching what he believed to be a rather remarkable raven on the first page, and splattering a rather eye-catching ink blot on the second.

Time, as it were, passed much in this fashion. Hastur would (loudly) flip a page over when he was done, and a few moments later, Warlock would add to the pile. He’d gone through most of the animals he could think of a while back and had gotten rather bored of them anyway in the middle of the mustelids. It was while working on his seventh square house that the office filled with the sound of rustling wings cutting through the air.

Papers flew across the ceiling of Hell. For the first time since arriving, Warlock saw the demons absolutely _animated._ They jumped up and down, grabbing at fistfuls of flying debris like they were millions of dollars, zipping through the air, ready to papercut anyone in their way.

“What’s that?” he asked before thinking.

Hastur lunged up, ripping down handfuls of the stuff. They fell to his desk as soon as he touched them. The magic of flight gone, and the weight too heavy to be proper paper. But they appeared to be blank.

“This is lunch,” Hastur replied, hands full again.

Warlock flinched as a hand snaked behind his head and his mouth fell open to protest.

“You said you were hungry. Eat up.” And Hastur shoved a wadded up ball of paper into Warlock’s mouth.

The world snapped, quick as a rubber band against his skin.

The air was clear. He could smell clean air so strong it made his nose itch. Could smell the gas from a stove. Could hear the bubbling of boiled water. Dinner being made. Earth. _Earth._ He was on _Earth._ He heard crying.

 _“What the hell were you thinking!?”_ Warlock shouted. Not with his voice. With a man’s voice, much older and deeper. Like his dad.

His hand was wrapped around a little girl’s wrist. She was crying.

 _“You’re always such a fuss!”_ Beth. His wife. Not that Warlock was married, he was too young for that obviously, but -- she rolled her eyes. She always rolled her eyes. She never took anything seriously.

_He hated her._

_“For heaven’s sake, she’s fine, Peter. No boiling water, no scars. All you’ve done is scared her, are you happy?”_

She _was_ fine. Shaken up and snotting down her lip, but safe. He’d plucked her off the counter moments before she dunked her hand into the pot of boiling water.

 _“Go to your room,”_ Warlock whispered to the girl, petting her bangs back until they tucked behind her ear.

He waited till he heard the click of her bedroom door.

_“I swear to God, Beth, I’m fucking sick of this! You have to keep an eye on her!”_

She rolled her eyes again. He could see her face shut down. Could practically tell which errands she was thinking about as she didn’t listen.

 _“You always bend out of shape like this. Blowing things out of proportion—”_ Listen to me.

 _“Last time she burnt her hand—”_ It was your fault.

_“I said I was sorry. What more do you want from me?”_

A fucking moment of peace! A single second where I don’t have to worry my kid is going to die!

_“What more do I—I want you to take some fucking responsibility, Beth!”_

Why did she refuse to understand?

_“What happens next time, when I’m not here? What happens when she burns her hand so bad she can’t use it again?”_

_“I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”_

Stop it. Don’t shut me out.

 _“When she falls and splits her head open?”_ Listen to me. _“Will you start taking responsibility after she’s died?”_ Listen to me!! _“Is that what it’s going to take? Is it!? LISTEN TO ME, BETH.”_

He was going to hit her. She wouldn’t listen and he just had to knock some fucking sense into her!

Warlock felt his arm pull back. His arm tense, already feeling the blow. He couldn’t. He couldn’t, he couldn’t, _he couldn’t._

The arm flickered. Phased. Peter froze. Warlock wrenched his hand away from Peter’s arm. Through the air. It was like swimming through honey. Thick and syrupy and so, so hard. He reached his pocket. Felt the curved, hard handle of his knife.

The button on the side released the blade. He should have taken it out of his pocket first. Oh well. His leg rippled with a cut of pain, but he felt even more detached from Peter. Freed.

He sliced through the space in front of him. Blind to everything. Just trying to destroy the image of Peter from his mind. Each cut was easier. Quicker. Less—

The blade stopped. Burrowed deep in flesh.

_Snap._

Black blood poured over Warlock’s hand, stretching and dripping to the floor. Hastur was bent in two, arms clenched around his waist as he screeched in pain. Black speckled his teeth and lips and sprayed out as he screamed.

The frog atop his head glared at Warlock as the human body took a deep and rattling breath. Warlock wrenched his knife out of Hastur’s gut and fell back into the desk as his legs gave out.

“I–I’m sor—”

Hastur _howled._

_“You’re dead!”_

Warlock ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Ambiguous child neglect and domestic abuse. (Also an unrelated instance of body horror and demonic cannibalism.)
> 
> Re: The child neglect/domestic abuse: In the second half of the Warlock section, he experiences a scene on Earth from the POV of a father about to hit his wife. The scene opens implying their young child was almost seriously hurt due to the mother's neglect.
> 
> If you would like to skip this section, it begins with, "Hastur shoved a wadded up ball of paper into Warlock’s mouth." And the scene ends when Warlock grabs the knife in his pocket. Approximately at, "The button on the side released the blade. He should have taken it out of his pocket first."


	7. Not Much for Fish / Hides in the Walls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the patient waiting, guys! I really wanted to make sure I knocked the next couple sections out correctly, so I hope the wait is worth it~
> 
> Also! I've been getting my spoons back, so I went and did some proof-reading over old chapters (I am so sorry for the number of hyphens I forgot to convert to em-dashes, it's a freaking embarrassment...) and added some Hell Lore in some of the footnotes. So if you've been enjoying this little mishmash of a world I've been building and want to know more, there's some fun facts and links and things you can click through! (I have SO MANY weird Satanist websites in my internet history now. It's wild...)
> 
> Anyway, as usual, content warnings are in the end notes. Enjoy!

**CHAPTER 6**

**Crowley Isn't Much for Fish**

A little girl in a tutu screeched and ran circles around the column of jellyfish. Trying to “blend in with the locals” as it were. Her mother stood a few paces back, happy to let the girl run herself tired in one of the few empty sections of the aquarium. Her teenage son stood quietly by the tropical fish tank, intently watching the blue tangs swirl around. Crowley watched the teenage boy.

Warlock had preferred large, destructive things like whales, sharks, and krakens over the delicate tropical fish that surrounded them, but still…

The fabric of the universe shifted, then settled back as Aziraphale stepped up to the railing beside him.

“Are you following me now?”

“Hardly,” Aziraphale replied, his Grace rolling sharp around his form. Crowley wanted to be angry with him, but the exhaustion was clear in the tight lines of anxiety that wrapped around his angel. Around him too, if he had to guess, since Aziraphale took a breath and his Grace settled. “You weren’t at your flat or any of the usual places and I,” he spun the signet ring on his pinky finger, “Worried. Sorry, I don’t mean to suffocate you.”

“No, it’s—” Crowley growled. He hated putting things into words, at least before the third glass of wine, so he settled against Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Ugh, sorry. It was nice. I appreciate it.”

The little girl changed directions, now running anti-clockwise around the jellyfish. Mum was checking her texts. The teenager was still staring intently at the blue tang.

“This haircut suits you.”

“Yea, I suppose.” Crowley resisted the urge to run his fingers through the undercut.

“It’s very fetching,” Aziraphale insisted. “Rather similar to your last short style, isn’t it? The one right before the um ‘End Times,’ I mean.”

Bless it, he was lucky Crowley loved him, because Aziraphale always blundered through a touchy subject like a bear on roller blades. “Yesss,” Crowley hissed.

“I only ask because I thought it might have some… meaning to it. Some symbolism, perhaps?”

He wanted to say, “Eh, just felt like a change of pace,” or “It was getting to be a lot of maintenance. Curled and knotted like anything!”

The boy-who-could-have-been-Warlock moved over to the butterfly fish to stand and stare and fixate for a fresh twenty minutes.

“I don’t know what to do. We’ve done everything and learned nothing, and _I don’t know what to do next_.”

The Antichrist had been useless. Warlock wasn’t here, but he wasn’t _There_ or _There_ either. Couldn’t be alive or dead? It was the worst riddle he’d heard in 6,000 years of existence.

The American witch hadn’t been much better. She spouted the same stuff about not feeling Warlock’s aura. After Crowley’s third bratty bout of, _“You’re doing it wrong!”_ Anathema had taken pity on him and spent a week trying to track Warlock with divining rods. Didn’t change the outcome, but the effort was nice.

Madame Tracy was useless for paranormal pursuits, but Crowley still stopped by once a week for a “seance” that always devolved into tea and a bitchfit. Last time she’d brought out a bottle of sherry, and Crowley had ended up burying his face into her shoulder until it was wet and snotty. He hadn’t been back since, but she had found herself swamped with a miraculously busy client list ever since. So she hadn’t noticed.

“Oh well, I think that’s a bit premature. It’s not fair to discount—”

“I’ve tried _everything_ , angel. Every Hellish and Earthly connection I could pull.”

Crowley had asked _Shadwell_ of all humans for help!

He’d paid the old conman an exorbitant amount of money, only to get back a stack of newspaper articles about haunted buildings! ( _Ghosts aren’t real.” “Nae, see, the boy’s soul has clearly been caught on this plane. Attached to an old relic by a witch’s curse, no doubt.” “No, seriously, ghosts aren’t a thing.” “Yer clearly misinformed”_ )

Oh, and printouts of forums frequented by any number of teenagers under names like “Warlock365” and “WitchesNWarlocks” and even a “Weedlock.” ( _“S’not an internet handle, it’s his name. Warlock.” “Aye, I found ye plenty of warlocks here. Under all sorts of names. Just like you asked.” “It’s not a job title! He’s not magical, he’s just called ‘Warlock,’ you blistering idiot!”_ )

At least yelling at Shadwell made him feel better.

Which was good, because yelling at his plants had become a nightmare. He shrieked and screeched at them, venting out all his fury, but too much of his fear and anxiety must have been leaking through. They had become wilting, awful things, with brown patches streaked across all the leaves. Eventually he’d stopped checking on them altogether. Last week he’d given up entirely and locked the door. Left them to rot on their own.

“I think we ought to give The Cloud a second go. I suspect that they left our accounts active on purpose as a red herring!”

Crowley groaned.

After their forced retirement, Heaven and Hell shut down their corporate emails immediately, but Aziraphale discovered that their login information for the server storage was still active. Their passwords would expire in 47 years, and then they’d be locked out of the system permanently, but in the meantime, they could both access their head offices’ soul tally.

No Warlock Dowling on either soul count. Not even a different Warlock Dowling who just happened to share the same name. Nothing.

“What if Heaven or Hell has Warlock’s soul and they’re just feeding us the wrong data on purpose to torment us with this wild goose chase?”

“Stop it!”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to protest and Crowley pressed a long finger to his lips. “No, Aziraphale, stop! There’s no secret server. There’s no special book with the correct summoning charm. There’s no type of untapped magic we’ve overlooked. There’s just NOTHING. Warlock’s just gone and we can’t do ANYTHING. So stop it!”

“Well you might be ready to give up, but I certainly am not!”

“I’m not! I’m not. I just—” Crowley sighed. It hurt so much to breathe, he forgot he didn’t need to do it. It felt like his chest was collapsing in on him. “I need a break. Not forever, but I can’t—” he couldn’t keep flagellating the final wisps of hope that leaked between his fingers.

A moment passed, heavy enough that even the little jellyfish girl knew instinctively not to scream during it. Then Aziraphale wrapped Crowley’s hand in his, and tucked his head against his demon’s shoulder. Aziraphale watched the-boy-who-wasn’t-Warlock with Crowley, and when he shook against Crowley’s side with silent tears, Crowley didn’t mention it. He just rubbed soothing circles into the back of his hand.

“We are rather useless, aren’t we?” Aziraphale said.

Crowley laughed around the pit in his throat. “We just faffed about while the world was ending, caught up i–in crepes and w–witches,” Crowley replied. “Completely and utterly useless, we are.”

Aziraphale giggled, dabbing a handkerchief around his eyes. “Why the aquarium?”

“Hmm?” Crowley replied.

“The aquarium,” Aziraphale repeated. “You’ve never been much for fish. Why are you hiding out here?”

“Wasn’t hiding!” Crowley snapped. Aziraphale gave him one of his Looks. “I wasn’t! Seriously, it’s, well it’s _his_ favorite place,” he said, pointing at the teenager. “And I wanted to scope him out.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He’s the Dowling boy. The original one. Adopted out by the surviving nuns. I dunno, I just—I thought maybe he’d be the last piece to the puzzle. Like he’d been swapped with Warlock this whole time or-or, I don’t know. Something to guide us toward the next clue, I guess.”

“Oh, darling,” Aziraphale replied and kissed Crowley’s temple.

“Wasn’t useful, obviously.”

“No, but you’re quite clever.” The boy turned away from the tank, and there was no mistaking—he had Harriet Dowling’s nose and cheeks on the square, boxy head of Thaddius. Crowley turned away.

“I’m gonna head home, I think. Too much—erm, well, there’s nothing left to investigate here.”

“Quite,” Aziraphale replied, following him to the exit. “I can make us both some tea when we get back to the bookshop, if you like.”

Crowley stopped short at the Bentley, hand hovering over the passenger door. “No. Sorry, um that is, I thought I’d go back to my flat.”

“Oh. Oh! Yes, er, quite right.”

“It’sss not—I uh, left the plantsss—”

“—it’s quite alright. I shouldn’t have presumed—”

“—I mean, I’ll drop you off at the ssshop, obviously—”

Aziraphale took a breath and grasped Crowley’s arm. “A ride would be lovely, thank you.”

“Right. Right, yeah, of course.”

Crowley plowed through London traffic somehow faster than his usual pace, but Aziraphale said nothing and tried not to slide into Crowley on the harder turns.

“Thank you for the ride,” Aziraphale said once the car was idling in front of the bookshop. Aziraphale didn’t want to be alone right now. Crowley could read that in his reticence to leave the car. In the way he stared at his hands in his lap, fidgeting with his nail beds.

“Mm.”

But Crowley was being selfish. He wanted to be alone. For now. For awhile.

“May I drop in on you in a few days? There’s a delightful curry place I’d love to go to.”

“Yeah, sure angel.”

“Right then. I’ll be seeing you.”

“Mm.”

Crowley didn’t remember the ride home, but he must have taken the long way, or sat in front of the bookshop longer than he remembered. It was dark when he entered.

He didn’t bother with the lights, just tossed his sunglasses somewhere and let the clatter echo through the empty flat. Aziraphale wouldn’t bother him again until at least Thursday. That gave him plenty of time to get well and truly drunk several times. He had some shitty wine that wasn’t worthy of his angel’s standards that he could swim his way through.

Maybe he’d even risk watching some telly on his laptop. Wasn’t much Hell could do to make his life worse right now.

Crowley’s flat was too new for the floorboards to creak naturally, but they feared his wrath enough to highlight the quiet footfalls in his bedroom. Every nerve in Crowley’s body jumped and scales speckled his skin involuntarily.

The Mayfair flat was tied for the safest place in all Great Britain. (The bookshop had better wards, but Crowley had better locks.) No agent of Heaven or Hell should be able to break into the place, much less any burglar. And yet…

The floorboards stayed blessedly silent as Crowley crept down the corridor. His paintings hung untouched, which meant he was dealing with the world’s worst thief, or head office had gotten particularly clever.

The penthouse was high up, and Crowley had made sure to rent a flat with lots of windows in the bedroom. Blue light filtered through the room, highlighting a thin, lanky creature. He wore ragged clothes and muck-covered books, the scent of brimstone rolling off him in thick, familiar waves. But he wasn’t exactly a demon…

His hair was long and ratty with knots, but when he turned, his face was unmistakable.

“Nanny?”

* * *

**Warlock Hides in the Walls**

Without his maintenance vest, the only place Warlock could hide was inside the walls of Hell, crawling through the dusty, moldy vents. He waited for another avalanche of feet to pass—demons tearing through the fifth floor, hunting the invisible human.

As they crashed through desks and scattered paper, Warlock used the noise as cover and scrambled along the pipes, breath in his throat. The metal screeched and screamed beneath his knees, creaking with every move as he threw himself toward the IT conference rooms. (Dedicated to clowns, malware, and the door to his room.)

The crowd of demons passed and Warlock stopped, his knee landing on a sheet of metal that croaked under his weight, echoing down the pipes. He froze.

Hastur had gathered all of Hell to hunt him down. As Warlock had disappeared into the air ducts, he had watched a creature that looked like a swampy, polluted waterfall rip the horns off a corsican ram demon in pursuit of him. It was only their dedication to slaughtering one another that gave him the cover he needed to get away. He would not let them catch him. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

 _Breathe,_ said the soft Scottish accent in his ear. _One day you will rule over everything. You are powerful, Warlock. More powerful than anyone else on this planet. There's nothing in this world that can hurt you._

“I am powerful,” Warlock said, barely a whisper on the wind. “There’s nothing in this world that can hurt me.”

_This world isn’t Earth. It hurts. It hurts so much._

“Doesn’t matter.” He took a heavy, silent breath. “Nothing can hurt me. Keep going.”

The demons that filled the office continued to chatter. Whispers of, _“Did you hear? The human stabbed Hastur!”_ and delighted giggles of, _“No amount of protection is going to save it now!”_ slipped through the cracks in the walls. _“That human’s fair game now. I’m going to strip it of its skin and savor every scream.”_

“Can’t hurt me,” Warlock whispered. “Can’t hurt me. Can’t hurt me. _Keep going._ ”

Just around the corner. His door was between the unused toilets and the lockers. He just had to get there and… and hope it opened this time. There was nowhere else to run in his room, but at least down there he could hide among the rubbish as long as necessary. Probably.

“I am powerful.” His voice cracked.

Three demons started a fight over which of them would disembowel Warlock and eat his liver. He used the distraction to scoot another few meters to the bend in the hallway. Till he could see the gap in the wall where his door should be. There was a direct line between his hiding spot and the lockers, but no cover between the two other than the dozen demons prowling the office.

Shit, shit, shit, _shit._

He’d never been good at stealth missions in video games. Never had the patience for them. But there was no take-two here. _Shit._

Did he go now or wait till there were less demons about? _Would_ there be less, or would more appear while he waited? Could he wait, or would they find his hiding spot. Merry knew how much time he spent in the vents. It wouldn’t be long before the little awful goat man figured it out, or Warlock made too much noise, or a demon sniffed him out or—

A scream tore through the office. All the demons turned to the hallway leading to the elevators. Even the ones fighting over Warlock froze in their place. All the creatures in the office stopped to sniff and lick the air. Warlock could smell nothing over the scent of brimstone in his hair, but he knew the sound of flesh ripping and bone snapping.

With cries of alarm, the demons scrambled in the opposite direction, stampeding toward maintenance. Hands snapped under steel-toed boots and demons slammed each other into the walls so hard the vibrations rattled Warlock’s teeth.

Shadowy beasts filled the office, snapping their jaws at the slower prey and each other as they barreled down the narrow halls. Warlock had never seen them before, but he remembered the smell of rotting gums and howls and the steel-trap _snap_ of a pack of Hellhounds hungry for supper.

He pressed his body as small and tight against the furthest wall of the vent that he could manage.

Hellhounds flooded the office like a tidal wave. The front of the pack tore across desks, hunting the fleeing demons. Their night-black fur coats spilled across the floor like an inkblot on parchment as the pack spread out. The more controlled beasts slowed down and threw desks aside as they sniffed every corner of the office.

Warlock had coated himself in brimstone that “morning,” and still had a chunk in his pocket along with his collection of talons, teeth, fur, slime… Hopefully it would be enough to cover whatever remaining stink of human gripped onto him.

A wet, putrid nose sniffed along his wall. Warlock gripped the brimstone in his fingers. He would deal with the burns later.

The Hellhound was so close the jagged edge of the vent sliced a ribbon of blood across its nose. It cried out, falling back, and glaring at the air duct with pure black eyes, broken only by red flames set where pupils ought to be. Boring right through Warlock.

The Hellhound _howled_ and barreled into the vent. Warlock screamed, and every ear in the office perked, swiveling toward him.

Dozens of beady, glowing, coal-black eyes trained onto his burrow. A rabbit trapped in its den. A low growl passed through the wave of hounds till they were all humming the same single note: _KILL._

_I am powerful._

Brimstone. Knife. Lockers.

The Hounds lunged. Warlock screwed into a ball and kicked the vent with all his weight. It exploded off the hinges and smashed the closest Hellhound across the face. A narrow gap.

Warlock lunged through the crowd of hounds. Three meters!

A Hellhound latched onto his arm. Warlock twisted till his blade caught the dog in the gums. A fraction of a gap. He shoved the brimstone into the hound’s mouth. It screeched and spat Warlock’s hand out.

The hallway was narrow. Just narrow enough that the Hellhounds were scrambling over each other to get to Warlock. Just narrow enough that he had a moment, a _second_ to activate his door. To pull off a miracle in Hell.

“C’mon, _c’mon!_ ” His hands fumbled against the wall, ghosting across where the outline of the door should be. There had to be something. A frame, a latch, a raised edge. _C’mon._

“OPEN,” he shouted at it. He slammed his bloodied hand and knife against the wall. “For Satan’s sake—DO AS I TELL YOU!”

A fresh Hellhound trampled the beast still bleeding at the mouth and it snarled at Warlock, greeting him teeth first. Warlock fell against the wall, knife out and waving wildly in front of him. He squeezed his eyes shut. He was a coward, but he didn’t want to see his own death coming.

Metal struck him from behind, sending a cold spike up his spine. Handle. Door. Wood.

He didn’t have time to—

He pushed.

The door gave way.

He fell down a flight of stairs, and all he saw above him was the silhouette of a Hellhound, snarling down with a halo of light around it. Everything else was pitch black. Dark void. Nothing—

The door shut and everything turned _off._ Warlock was no longer sure if he was falling or tripping or laying flat in a sea of nothing.

He closed his eyes.

_Breathe._

_Breathe._

_Bre—_

Warlock was on the ground. His right arm hurt too much to move, and his fingers were going stiff around his knife, but his left stroked the ground. It was… weird. He couldn’t tell if it was hard or soft or ground or marble or—

He groaned and sat up. It didn’t matter what he was sitting on, it was safe. Down here he couldn’t even hear the howls of the Hellhounds. Actually, he couldn’t hear anything. For the first time since he’d been dragged down to Hell, it was just… silent.

Without being able to tell which way was up, standing made him queasy.

Didn’t make much of a difference either way, though. Warlock walked, but the ground didn’t change beneath him. Light didn’t appear. He swayed with every step, fumbling like he’d trip if he walked too fast, and dizzy with the pounding headache reminding him he was in pain, pain, _pain._

 _I just want to go HOME._ He cried to a universe that didn’t listen, in a voice he didn’t have.

He was sitting. Had he tripped on something? Was he dizzy?

The ground was cold. It shocked his hand open, and his duck-carved knife clattered against the ice and slid away. Good, he’d never wanted anything to do with it anyway. Made him feel vulnerable, though. Stuck in Hell without a weapon. Oh, but the ice was nice against his pounding head…

“Hello?”

Warlock whipped his head up, scanning the nothingness.

A figure now. Hazy, like it was shrouded by fog, but close enough to touch.

Warlock blinked and it snapped into focus. A man, half buried in the ice. He wore nothing, but didn’t shiver against the cold either. He lounged as comfortably as if he were at the edge of a pool, having a chat. But beyond his strange circumstance, he was the most normal person Warlock had seen since Megiddo. No horns or scales in sight.

“Sorry, it’s been awhile since anyone’s been down here. I nearly forgot my manners.”

“What are you?”

A sad smile crossed the man’s translucent lips. They ought to be frozen blue with cold. “A prisoner. Same as you, really.”

“So this is still Hell.”

“The lowest levels of it, yes.” He glanced around the nothingness. “The inescapable, Bottomless Pit.”

Warlock’s fingers were cramping with the cold. He shoved them into his armpits. “How do we get out of it?”

“I did say ‘inescapable.’” The man’s eyes flashed with a rye humor. The blue of them as cool and clear as the ocean.

“We can’t be trapped!”

“Well I am. You, well...” he scanned over Warlock with a disinterested glance that irritated him. “I guess it remains to be seen.”

Warlock huffed and turned his back on the man. The ice was slippery under his boots which were too threadbare to offer any useful kind of grip, but he slowly marched around the man in a circle. (“What are you doing?” he’d asked. “Looking for an exit,” Warlock had snapped. The man had shrugged and watched silently as Warlock circled him, waddling like a penguin with his arms out, looking for something in the darkness.)

“Why are you like that?” Warlock asked on his third circuit. Each one a foot wider than the last. “Trapped in ice, I mean.”

“Divine punishment,” the man replied. 

“Well yeah, but what did you do? You’re the first human I’ve seen in Hell.”

“Human souls are kept in a separate tower. A bastille all their own.” The man pushed his dusty blonde curls out of his eyes.

“S’not an answer.”

“You don’t miss a trick, do you?” The man twisted around as Warlock circled behind him. Fourth circuit. “Honor thy mother. I was always terrible at that. Rebellious little hellion, I guess. The Almighty takes that very seriously.”

Warlock slid his foot out in front of him, just to be sure he wasn’t missing anything on the ground. He wasn’t. “That can’t be all of it.”

“And I killed my brother.”

Warlock froze, aware how close this stranger was.

“Don’t be like that.” The man waved a nonchalant hand at him. “It was quite a long time ago. I’ve done plenty of repenting. Though I suppose that this is what an eternity of punishment means. Of course I would still argue I was acting in self defense.”

“Are you Cain?”

He smiled, but his eyes were sad. “No, but I suppose I did commit the original sin.”

“Okay.” Warlock scuffed his boot and coughed. “Look, not be _rude_ , but I’m not staying here, so like…”

“Of course. I get visitors so rarely, I just started to ramble.”

“Mm, well you said you were trapped here but I wasn’t.”

“Yes, I did.”

_“Can you elaborate on that, maybe?”_

“It’s straightforward enough. You can leave, if you don’t want to.”

“STOP IT. Just—” Warlock pulled his hair until his roots stung. “Stop being _cryptic_ and-and— _help me_!”

“Hell doesn’t work on help, child. Hell is the opposite of everything you know, and it preys on everything you want. If you want to leave, it won’t let you. That’s suffering. I mean look at the position I’ve been frozen in.” He gestured to his slip of torso sticking out of the ice. “I can’t even lounge like this. An eternity of discomfort. Though it’s surprisingly good for the abs and—”

“So,” Warlock interrupted, “If I stop _wanting_ to leave, then I _can_ leave? That’s it?”

“Well only demons can actually come and go as they please.”

“But I don’t want to be a demon! I just want to go home!” The man smiled again, sadness in his gaze. Like he’d forgotten what happiness was. (Or maybe it was just that pitying smile adults gave to children when they were being bratty or stupid.)

“Come here, child,” he said, and Warlock did, kneeling beside him on the ice. The man placed a hand on his shoulder, and it felt wonderful. The first time in Hell someone touched him without wanting to hurt him. He still flinched, but it was… nice.

“To be a demon is to rebel. It’s truly that simple. If a door says, “Do Not Enter,” a demon charges forward. If someone says, “No,” a demon says yes. And if someone says you’re trapped—”

“I say I’m not?”

The man smiled. “You’re getting it.”

“It’s a nice idea, but just ‘telling the universe what to do’ hasn’t actually worked at any point in my life ever.”

“Must have worked at some point. You got here. No one’s ever stumbled in here by accident before.”

“I—” Warlock struggled to remember how he did end up here. He’d been at his door and he had… he had ordered it to appear. And it did. Well, some door did at least. “I guess so, but not very reliably. I wanted to go to my room or to Earth, but it sent me here.”

“You wanted to go up, but it sent you down. So it stands to reason, if you want to go down, it will send you up.”

Warlock still frowned.

“Don’t overthink it,” the man said. “May I give you my sigil? It will help you travel through Hell more easily. It’s wasted on me, trapped as I am down here.”

“Thought Hell didn’t do favors.”

“We’re bending Hell to our will today, including its rule on favors,” he replied with a grin. He placed a hand over his chest and a silver necklace appeared. With a flick of his wrist he yanked it off and held it out to Warlock as one beautiful, unbroken chain. “Besides, consider it my payment for your visit. It has been a rare treat.”

Warlock stared into the man’s clear blue eyes, and nodded. In one smooth motion, the chain was around his neck, and the man was pulling his hair out so it would lay flat. He carded his hands through Warlock’s hair as the boy glanced at the silver links.

“What’s it say?” he asked, pointing at the tiny symbols carved almost too small to see on the links.

“They’re the sigils for my name. Heylel.”

“Heylel,” Warlock repeated, a soft smile on his face. “My name’s Warlock.”

Heylel ran a hand over Warlock’s scalp, pausing at the crown. “Warlock, mm? A nice name.” He pulled his hand out of Warlock’s hair, gentle when he snagged on a knot, and patted the boy on the shoulder. “I think you’ve been stuck down here long enough, don’t you? It’s time you gave rebellion a whirl.”

Warlock stood, fingers rolling over the chain in his hand. “Thank you, Heylel.”

“Get lost already.”

Warlock closed his eyes, smiling. _I’m going home._

He took a breath. _I’m going home._

And stepped backward.

_I’m going HOME._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Dogs get hurt, but none of them die! Animal attacks, attacked animals, and threats of graphic violence to a child.
> 
> Alright, that's a killer cliffhanger, so I'm doing ya'll a solid and the next chapter will be posted next week! Hope you've enjoyed, and have an excellent week!!


	8. His Boy / Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know how every fic has that chapter that you envisioned when you first started the fic, and you're writing everything around it, just to get to that chapter? This is that chapter~~~
> 
> Hope you all enjoy, it's been my absolute delight to get this far! There's more to come, so don't get complacent, this is just a very exciting chapter for me~
> 
> Content warnings are in the end notes!

**CHAPTER 7**

**Crowley Has His Boy**

It was a funny old thing, the way wires got crossed in Crowley’s corporation. The brain would say, “sniff” and the two aspects would react independently. Which was how Crowley learned his tongue was both long and dexterous enough to go completely up his nose. What his corporation saw as a soft bunny to be pet, his snake aspect instinctively hunted as prey. (He’d learned to just keep his hands to himself.)

In this instance, his snake aspect was ringing the alarms:  _ Intruder! Enemy! Predator! Mayfair has been compromised! _

Crowley shoved all those alarms in a box to be untangled later and focused on the stone in his throat and the way his heart felt like it was dripping blood over his ribcage. Warlock was  _ here _ , in his flat. It was too good to be true.

“H-hey, hellspawn,” he croaked. He wanted to hug the kid and never let go, but Warlock’s shoulders jumped to his ears and he stepped back instead, hands up and fingers splayed.

“Sorry, sorry, I won’t crowd you.” The Scottish accent was rusty, but he dusted off the Nanny affect and let it slide out like warm honey. “It’s a bit dark, so I’m going to turn the lights on, dear. Is that alright?”

Warlock shrugged, long hair slipping over his face, so Crowley slid the lights up to fifty percent. It was dim, but apparently still bright enough to make Warlock squint and shake his head till hair covered his eyes like a curtain.

“Sorry, dear, I’m so sorry,” Crowley said, stepping toward Warlock, only for Warlock to take a full step back. “Boundaries, of course. That’s good to have. Here I am, presuming you even—” he coughed around the stone in this throat, “—that you even remember me. It has been such a long time, of course.” Crowley perched on the corner of the king-sized bed, his hands kneading at the sheets. That left Warlock closer to the door. To the exit.

“I’m a bit sensitive to light too,” Crowley offered, tapping his glasses, “Don’t know if you remember. But I have spares that might help. Top drawer. There are all sorts of styles if you want to borrow some.”

“No,” Warlock said.

“Okay, that’s fine too,” Crowley nodded. Much as he felt bad for the way Warlock shrinked in the light, it gave Crowley his first proper look at the boy. Three years since his birthday party, which hardly counted since Crowley had spent most of the hour anxiously waiting for a Hellhound and armageddon. Six years since he’d really gotten a chance to  _ see _ Warlock. “Are your eyes adjusting at least?”

Warlock shrugged still blinking forcefully, but his eyes were starting to focus at last, and he pushed the hair off his face. His pale blue eyes looked nearly white, contrasted as they were with patchy red around the rims and deep shadows gouged into his skin. Frankly, he looked like he had one foot already in the grave. But he’d made eye contact with Crowley, and that made the demon smile, despite himself. They had a rope between them. The most fragile of moorings, but he could build a bridge off that.

“You’ve grown so much since I last saw you.” He was tall now. Even hunched over, he was coming up on Crowley quick. Another growth spurt and he’d be towering, but he seemed wafer thin despite that. A slip of a person ready to be bowled over in a single gust of wind. Though that could just be the military jacket that hung off him three sizes too big. “Do you remember? You were barely to my waist back then.

“Of course, we both look a bit different now, I suppose.” Crowley fidgeted. “If you, ah, have questions, I’ll answer anything. Whatever you want to know.”

“Are you—” Warlock’s voice cracked, gravelly and disused. He coughed and Crowley sat on his hands so he wouldn’t fidget so visibly. “Are you this?” Mayfair. Modern. Vacant. Cold. Marble. A stranger. “Or Ashtoreth?”

“Nghk, uh,” to the heart of it, then. “It’s—I mean, both are  _ me _ . Ashtoreth isn’t like a fake—she was an alias, sure, but she’s—”

“Which is it?” Warlock demanded.

The rope was slack and slipping.

“This. I’m Crowley,” he admitted, Scottish accent disappearing. “This is what I’m usually like. My flat, my bedroom, my clothes. Ashtoreth was an alias I assumed to watch over you. But Warlock,” he shrunk under the boy’s gaze, but held it anyway, “You have to understand that’s just window dressing. I still cared about you.” Warlock flinched. “ _ Care _ . Present tense.”

Once upon a time, Warlock had been so talkative. He wouldn’t stop asking questions till Harriet wanted to throw him out a window and scream, “Because I said so!” loud enough to be heard in America. Crowley could hardly get an answer out before Warlock had come up with three new questions on entirely separate subjects.

“Please… say something.”

Warlock sniffed and suddenly shoved his knuckle into his eye like he was trying to gouge it out.

“Warlock, stop!” Crowley squirmed in his spot, determined to keep his promise to stay put, but— “Stop! You’ll hurt yourself!”

“Shut up!” Warlock shouted, yanking at his roots till tears pooled on his cheeks. “Stop it! Don’t do this!” Crowley broke his promise.

In three long strides he stood in front of Warlock, prying his fingers apart. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but please don’t hurt yourself,” he pleaded. As he unwrapped his fingers, Warlock swatted at him with wide clumsy blows.

“Stop it! Leave me alone!”

“No! Never again.” Crowley trapped Warlock’s wrists between them, and pulled his boy into a tight hug. “I never should have left you in the first place—”

“Shut up! SHUT UP!”

“—But I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Warlock wiggled his hands free and tried to shove Crowley away, but Crowley was good at constricting around prey.  _ Not prey! Warlock! _ After a few aborted escapes, Warlock went lax in his arms and Crowley felt hot tears on his chest, staining his shirt. They were both crying now.

“I’ve got you,” Crowley soothed. “I’m not going anywhere. Let it out” He pressed a kiss against Warlock’s hair, searching for the smell of him under the brimstone and rot. The scent of cinnamon and grass and a sprig of mint. “I love you, hellspawn.”

“Nanny, please don’t,” Warlock hiccuped.

“Sorry kid, you’re stuck with me.”

Crowley buried his face in Warlock’s hair, and felt something hard and sharp press against his cheek, obscured in the roots of Warlock’s hair.  _ We’ve been compromisssed! _ His snake aspect hissed.

“Nanny,” Warlock whispered as white hot heat bloomed across Crowley’s belly. “I’m sorry, Nanny.” Crowley looked down at the long silver knife in Warlock’s hand, glowing with Grace. Tears streaked Warlock’s face. “I love you too.”

* * *

**Warlock is Home**

Grass crumpled under Warlock’s boots. Clean, clear air filled his lungs for the first time in—he collapsed to the ground, coughing. The wind was so cool and crisp it  _ hurt _ and cut at his throat and lungs, but he was laughing through the hacking coughs. He could  _ breathe _ . His head spun, dizzy like the time his father dragged the family up a mountain to go skiing. The grass tickled his face and the ground was soft against his forehead. Earth. Home. He’d missed it so much he wanted to cry.

In the distance, a car beeped. People.  _ He was near people. _

With a shuddering gasp, Warlock leaped to his feet and scampered toward the sound. He ran from the line of trees and found a road within a few meters. Gravel scattered under him as he ran. The driveway came into view, and he recognized the lamps, the house, the car—

Thaddius Dowling slammed the driver’s side door. Harriet Dowling stepped out of the passenger’s side. They were  _ alive. _ His dad was scowling (“That idiot was in the wrong lane, so I went around him! I don’t see the issue.”) and being unhelpful while his mom was sniping at him (“Think about the rest of us, once in a while, Tad. Your son was in the car and that Audi almost T-boned us!”) and pulling bags out of the back. This was when he’d usually pipe up with, “You’re both being obnoxious! Can you just shut up for five minutes?” and start a new row with his dad.

This was home. He’d made it  _ home. _

“Mom! Dad!” he shouted, nearly tripping in excitement. He’d sleep in his bed tonight. Soft and sweet-smelling. He couldn’t even remember what color his duvet was anymore. Red? It didn’t matter, he was safe! “Mom, Dad, I’m back! I can’t believe you’re alive!”

His vision swam with tears, and it took him a moment to realize his mom was holding a baby carrier. Thaddius stepped in front of him, arms out, and blocked Warlock’s view. Did he have a sibling now? Gross! How long had he—

“HEY, BACK OFF!” Thaddius shouted at him, and Warlock flinched, stopping dead in his tracks. He’d forgotten how thunderous his dad was. “You’re confused, and you’re trespassing.”

“Honey what’s happening?” Harriet asked, peering around Thaddius, a baby clutched in her arms, like Warlock was a kidnapper.

“Mom, I—trespassing?”

“It’s nothing, dear. WHERE THE HELL IS SECURITY!” Thaddius shouted as men in suits were already running toward them.

“Dad, it’s me! Warlock!” Two guards squeezed between him and his dad. Six feet of stone wall gently shoved him away from his parents. “Stop, I—DAD!”

“C’mon kid, you don’t belong here. Get lost before we have to get physical.”

“This is my house! Those are my parents!” Warlock cried as the older guard hiked him up by his jacket and marched him away. “Dad! Dad stop him, please, I’m sorry!” Thaddius and Harriet stared at him, confused. Thaddius frowned like he was in pain, and Harriet put a hand to her forehead like she was about to pass out. “Please, please, I just want to go home! Mom, you can’t—”

“Is he bleeding?” She asked Thaddius, squinting through her headache.

“Probably a confused junkie,” he replied, waving Warlock off. “Let’s get inside. Lock the doors.”

“MOM!” he cried, lunging against the guards.

“Seriously kid, we don’t want to hurt you!” they shouted. But Warlock couldn’t hear them. He couldn’t process anything except his parents walking away from him. Shutting him out. No, no, no, he was so close! Was this still Hell?  _ Don’t ask for what you want. _

“I hate you! I hate you both, and I don’t want to go home anyway! I WANT to be thrown out!”

Security dragged him down the driveway, and threw him to the gravel road on the other side of the gate. “You have fifteen minutes to disappear or we’re calling the cops,” they warned, and then Warlock was alone.

Grit pebbled his cheeks. It stuck to his skin like freckles. A large rock had split his lip open, and his tears turned the ground soggy, coating his cheek in mud as he lay prone. Shaking.

He was supposed to be free! Out of Hell and safely home. Had he done something wrong? Was this a dream, like Peter and his wife? A nightmare, constructed just for him?

Warlock screamed. Slammed his bloodied fists into the ground, bawling and trying to make the Earth rattle with his cries. He was no powerful boy or prince of Hell or leader of the troops of the damned. He wasn’t even wanted.

“I knew I spotted some kindling for Wrath scattered within your heart.” Astaroth.

“So I am still in Hell,” Warlock sniffled.

“Your life was destined for suffering the moment,” she sneered, “ _ Crowley _ , intervened.”

“Why am I being punished?” Warlock flopped on his back, staring up at the empty, inky black sky. If there were still stars in the universe, they weren’t watching over him. “Just because this Crowley guy imprinted on me? Cared about me? I don’t even know who he is.”

“He may have warded you,” Astaroth scoffed, “But he didn’t care about you. No more than a general cares about their ground troops, at least.”

“Why doesn’t anyone in Hell talk plainly?” Warlock sat up and scrubbed at his face. He dragged gravel across his cheek and winced at the sting. Astaroth watched him, her black eyes shining in the dark like a cat.

“You really don’t know your part in this little game, do you?” Snot mixed with blood on Warlock’s sleeve. “Should I tell you?”

Warlock snorted. “I don’t even slightly trust you to tell me the truth.”

“I have no reason to lie. There is no better way to ignite a funeral pyre of Wrath in a human than by showing it just how little and worthless it is in the grand machinations of the universe.”

“Great...”

The security guards were looping back now. Completing their circuit of the grounds to make sure the weird little homeless kid had scampered off. Warlock scrambled to his feet to run, but Astaroth pointed at both of them and, with a flick of her wrist and simple, “Begone,” both men vanished in a blink.

“Wh—what did you do to them?”

“Do you actually care?” Worryingly, Warlock found he didn’t actually. “Your window for knowledge is closing rapidly, human. Did you want to know your part in this grand plan or not?”

“Alright fine, why are my parents alive? Hastur killed them at Megiddo.”

“The day they died, the world was meant to end. Your eleventh birthday marked the countdown to the day Heaven and Hell would battle for control of the universe,” Astaroth replied, yanking absentmindedly at her dark curls. “Unfortunately the real Antichrist was manipulated. He denounced his heritage and reset the Earth, like nothing had happened. The dead walk among us.”

“Then why wasn’t I reset? If everything else went back to normal, why don’t my parents recognize me?”

“Despite his heritage, the Antichrist is, unfortunately, of Earth, and thus he only rules over the humans and the horsemen. He can’t pull a prisoner out of Hell anymore than we could pull one out of Heaven. So the universe couldn’t find you and simply stitched over the paradox you left behind. It manipulated your family’s memories with whatever lies would satiate them and moved on.” Warlock shivered.

“Right. Right, okay. So this Antichrist—he’s the boy I was swapped with. By Crowley, right?” Maybe that’s why his parents could never  _ really _ bring themselves to like him. Maybe subconsciously they always knew he was the wrong boy. “Is that when he warded me?”

Astaroth snarled, and her curly hair sparked at the ends. Warlock was getting used to this reaction and waited for her to stop.

“Crowley has had an agenda all his own this entire time. We should have seen the double-cross coming,” she spat. “He wanted the Antichrist’s power for himself, so he hid the boy away in the countryside and tricked Beelzebub into thinking you were the Prince of Darkness while he twisted the real Antichrist to his own ends. Meanwhile, he spent years molding you into the perfect demonic general.”

_ You will command armies. You will crush all living things beneath your heel. _

“Lucifer was so pleased with what a promising leader you were turning out to be.”

“But I—” Warlock’s voice was tinny in his ears. No, no, no, please no... “—I never knew Crowley.”

“Of course you did.” Astaroth stroked a finger across his cheek—across his scars—and tipped his chin up. “He disgraced my name. Your precious Ashtoreth.”

No, she had to love him. One single person had to love Warlock Dowling.

“Why haven’t you killed me already?”

“Because we’re not done with you yet,” a low voice croaked from behind him. Warlock glanced over in time to see Hastur step out of a hole in the ground, flicking dirt off his jacket. Black blood still stained his shirt and hatred stained his scowl. “You’d be surprised what a human can survive.”

Warlock stepped back instinctively, into Astaroth’s waiting embrace. Her arms wrapped around him in a steely grip, and Warlock cried out as she squeezed the Hellhound bites on his arm.

“You never did ask how long you’ve been missing, which is a real shame. I get to be the first person to wish you a happy birthday,” she crooned in his ear as his shoulder dislocated and he screamed. “Congratulations on making it to twelve. You’re such a grown up young man! Let’s see if you can make it to thirteen!”

The Earth beneath the three of them fell away into a pit two meters wide. Warlock’s personal grave. He scrabbled and squirmed in Astaroth’s death grip, screaming for help as she and Hastur dragged him back into Hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Stabbing, a dislocated shoulder, and the universe briefly gaslighting a kid. Sorta. References to an extremely unpleasant family dynamic.


End file.
